I rarely write blogs about my own personal experiences of the paranormal, not because I am embarrassed by them or even sceptical that they actually happened, but more because it is hard to cover them in a short article and do them justice.
We had decided to take our two sons to Normandy to both have a relaxing holiday and also to educate them on the D Day landings, and possibly take in the odd museum along the way (anyone who knows me will also realise that it was more than the odd one, after all, I am a total junkie when it comes to that kind of thing).
When we arrived at the cottage we realised we had hit the jackpot, it was a very old building (around four hundred years I believe), set in a huge field and surrounded by trees and crucially our only neighbours were cattle and a few horses. Not only that, the weather was beautiful and we could relax for the next two weeks.
Perfect…or so we thought.
From the first evening there, the atmosphere in the home changed when night fell, and it was not me who said it first, it was my husband who does not have a spiritual bone in his body. His actual words were that he did not want to have to go downstairs after dark to use the bathroom as he felt he was not alone. It is hard to explain that feeling if you have not experienced it yourself, but things were to happen over the next week to make me even more sure that we did not have the quaint gite to ourselves.
Frequently we would hear very clear footsteps on the landing between ours and the children’s bedrooms, so distinct was the sound that we expected one of the boys to come walking in…you can probably guess that they did not. One night I was woken up by the sense I was being “watched”, not an uncommon thing with youngsters as you frequently wake up and find them staring straight into your face akin to something like the children of the corn. As I opened my eyes I saw a large shadow leaning over my sleeping husband, but it was the fact he said “who’s watching me?” and the mass looked up at me and vanished. The strange thing was, whatever was upstairs felt different to downstairs, it felt caring rather than threatening, it was still a weird experience for me.
A few days later, after we had spent the entire day playing in the huge field that surrounded the house, sunbathing and generally relaxing, that we were to see something that if I had not had another person with me, I would not have believed myself.
The downstairs of this cottage was all open plan, with the various areas being separated by nothing more than beams, and in the eating part was a small four person table which my son had placed his bag on, in the middle, it had been there all day. As my husband said to me
“it feels weird in here tonight”
we watched as the bag literally flew from the table and onto the floor, as though someone had swept it away with their arm. Looking back on it now – and I still have trouble rationalising it – I know that we were both sober, there were no earthquakes, tractors working in the fields or even lorries coming past that could have caused the table to vibrate, the bag did not just fall, it flew.
After this I decided that I needed to have words with whoever was unhappy with us being there, so the other three went out the next day to the supermarket and left me alone. I did not have any gadgets with me, so I walked around the ground floor just chatting, asking if it was alright if we stayed for another ten days, saying that we appreciated them allowing us to experience their home and assuring them we would respect it.
I will not say that after that the activity stopped, but it certainly reduced, it ended up with washing machines being turned on, the odd cushion moved and the such which I found amusing as I had felt the energy was female, maybe she felt sorry for me and was trying to help with the housework?
So, not only was it a holiday full of history (if you ever get to go to Normandy, visiting the beaches, Pointe du Hoc and the birthplace of William the Conqueror are a must) I also got to walk away with one of the most extreme paranormal experiences I have had to date and one I will never forget.