So it would seem that I apparently, unintentionally, always leave many months between these posts haha! Though with the most wonderful time of the year here and the best date on the calendar only five days away, why not post it now?!
This is of course the next part in my paranormal stories mini-series and we are moving into my early adult years. As people get older most who may have had experiences as a child tend to 'grow out of it'. As I mentioned in the teen years post, things did start to slow down for me as I got older, though I had made an effort to consciously block out as much as possible due to people in my life being completely disbelieving of anything I experienced.
I did of course still have the odd unexplainable occurrence, particularly in specific areas and some of those are what I want to share today.
Check out the previous posts in this series below:
The Beginning / Childhood ExperiencesThe Teen Years---
At home things were quiet. Nothing special or particularly out of the ordinary often happened which I think could in part be due to the age of the houses I lived in and in part due to the non-believer also sharing the roof.
However, there were rare occurrences surrounding my Granda's shepherd's crook. Every now and then an odd orb or two would show itself nearby and more often than not, Baker would stop what he was doing to stand and stare directly at it for seemingly no reason whatsoever.
My Granda was of course a shepherd and surrounded by dogs for the majority of his life. He always had Border Collies and at one point he also had a Lurcher. We got Baker not long after we lost Granda as he is a Border Collie Lurcher cross and saw it fitting. I like to think that Baker was visiting to meet Baker.
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In around 2015/16 I was working as a cleaner in a betting shop. My shift was early morning, I was completely alone and I obviously would lock myself in. Above the shop and to the left is a nightclub, though upon looking at images online I'm not quite sure if the nightclub comes right along the row of stores and if it is also directly above the bookmakers or not.
Anyway, sporadically I would hear footsteps from above and not at times when anyone would still be in the nightclub. Not only that but they were few and far between - literally - as in there would be a handful of forceful foot thumps on the ceiling and then they would stop before returning a good 30 minutes plus later. It would seem that if it were a person they were walking about a meter or so, standing in that spot for quite a while and then walking back to their starting position. This would happen maybe once a month and on different days of the week at different times of the morning.
Another lone but much more strange experience while working here includes what could be assumed to be an almost full-bodied apparition.
I was busy behind the desk dusting area and cleaning the computer and keyboards when I felt as if someone was standing at the counter waiting for attention. There couldn't be anyone there though, could there? Because I was alone, it was around 6am and the door was locked. As I slowly lifted my head I could see from my peripherals what seemed like a tall stocky but not large figure in a dark colour and once my face was up completely there was nothing there at all anymore...
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And then there was the care home.
I started there as a cleaner during the day and also cleaned the home of the care home owners.
After a short time, I was asked if I would like to progress on as a carer as I was so good with the residents and I trained to work night shift.
Residential Care Home. Night Shift. Yep.
I wasn't afraid to begin with and to be fair I wasn't afraid so to say, even after the things I witnessed started to happen. From footsteps upstairs while all residents were asleep and the grandfather clock chiming once at random times despite working completely fine all day every day to weird fog-like 'apparitions' on the security camera screens, there were a whole manner of smaller occurrences that were obviously strange in themselves but nothing that I hadn't dealt with before.
Then there would be a shout from above my head and I'd rush up to check on everyone only to find them fast asleep and not so much as a mumble under their breath. After that, I felt a weird chill in one of the upstairs corridors every time I had to walk along it and I hurried along rather than walked while doing my rounds.
Finally, one night as I rounded the corner of the stairs approaching said corridor I saw a woman in a white nightgown heading toward me... I wondered what on Earth someone was doing out of their room at such a time of the night when in a blink they were gone. Although many of our residents were perfectly mobile, none of them could have disappeared so incredibly quickly!
We sadly lost three residents while I worked there, one of which I was rather close to.
The above happened before we lost the only person (the one I was closest to) that would have fit the appearance of the woman walking along the corridor.
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Rounding out this post I should touch upon the point mentioned above, that I also cleaned the owners home too. This carried on while I was on night shift for a short while too. To tell the truth, I can't 100% remember everything that went on here and wish my notes had more information than just 'Margaret's House'! It is a huge, beautiful old house of Grade II listed building and so obviously came with its own extensive history of which I would love to know but unfortunately I do not and cannot find out anything online.
Creeks on floorboards above my head, whispers and a very strange feeling in at the bottom of the stairs.
There was a door there under the stairs which I think led to a cellar, if it's the same as other houses in the area, that was always locked. Well I assume it was, I never tried the door...I just felt that it was lock and that I didn't like walking near it!
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Phew! That was a wordier-than-expected post. This summarizes the 'paranormal' experiences that stood out in my memory from my early adulthood - that is pretty much my early to mid-twenties.
Things haven't slowed down and I have many more stories to tell in the next post...
I'm guessing those reading this aren't judgemental or super skeptics but just in case you are, I am well aware that many things can be explained, and if I also mentioned every occurrence that had any chance of an explanation we'd be here for years. That's to say the things mentioned above had no obvious explanation. Don't be fooled, though I believe I also stay semi-skeptical and try to rationalize things as much as possible so I'm not spinning tales out of crumbs.
Until next time...
