Posted by Sometimes a ghost story can be both frightening and somewhat lovely. Today we hear about Lottie, a permanent resident in an old vicarage purchased about a decade ago by this week’s story teller, Kel. Sit back, make yourself a cup of tea, or if you’re lucky, have someone make it for you…
1. What is your name?
Kel
2. Are you in a Club? If so, which one?
TeamPower
3. Who’s your favorite Solitaire TriPeaks character?
Minitikis! Soooo cute!
4. Okay… now tell us your story…
I never believed in things that went bump in the night, that is until 2010 when we moved into our home, an old vicarage.
Odd things happened right from the start. The day we moved in we were so exhausted that we went to bed without putting up safety gates on the stairs. We had three-year-old twin sons and a five-year-old daughter, all of whom slept well and right through the night, so we figured as long as we got up early enough it would be fine.
In the early hours of the morning something woke me up. It was just this feeling that I needed to check on the kids. When I opened our bedroom door I was a bit surprised to see the landing light on, but figured it was my wife forgetting to turn it off after a visit to the restroom. Anyway, I walked across the landing towards the boys room. As I did I noticed the hallway light downstairs was on too. I was at this point getting a touch tetchy about having to turn lights off I assumed had been left on by my wife. In fact, I fairly stropped downstairs until I noticed Bobby, one of my boys, sat at the kitchen table with his blankie and the sippy-cup from bedtime that I had put in the fridge. I was absolutely furious assuming my wife had gotten up with him and just forgotten about him when she went back to bed.
I put Bobby back to bed and went to rage at my sleeping wife. Once I’d calmed down enough to be coherent I finally explained why I was apoplectic to my wife who was sat in bed looking utterly dumbfounded. She said that she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. We were both shattered from moving day and so agreed to talk through it in the morning.
Come morning I wasn’t sure what had happened anymore. I figured it was a dream, apologized to my wife and we thought nothing more of it.
That is, until a couple of days later when we found our 5 year old daughter May playing in the spare bedroom whilst having a full on conversation with no-one. Imaginary friend, we thought – awww how cute.
That evening over dinner we asked our five-year-old about her friend what her name was etc. That’s when we found out that her friend’s name was Lottie and she was very pretty and friendly. Then casually out of nowhere our daughter said “Lottie helped Bobby.” “That’s nice,” we said, “how did she do that?” Then she said: “When Bobby got upset in the dark she put the lights on for him and gave him a drink.” My wife and I sat open mouthed and then changed the subject quickly. We hadn’t said anything to any of the kids about the happenings on the night of moving day. We shrugged it off. She probably half heard something and figured that was that.
About a fortnight later I decided to measure up for curtains in the spare bedroom. It was about 7 in the morning as I was going to look for some in my lunch hour. I closed the curtains and measured the drop and width before going about the rest of my morning. I was the last to leave that day and the first to get home. I took the curtains up to the spare bedroom to check the color against the paint and that’s when I noticed the curtains i had left closed were now open. I thought it was probably my wife forgot something and came back to look for it, opening the curtains to let in some light. Except when I asked her that evening she had no idea what I was talking about and swore she hadn’t been back to the house all day. It was at this point we thought we might have to consider maybe something unusual was happening in the house. And so there is. A wonderful caring and helpful something.
Yes, Lottie is unusual but she’s absolutely benign in every way. In fact, one time I was off work with raging flu and I went to the downstairs loo which was through the kitchen. I rinsed my mug, and flicked the kettle on as I walked through to toilet. When I got back to the kitchen there was a tea bag and boiling water in my cup.
5. Would you say this experience changed your life? If so, how so?
We have stayed in the vicarage with our residential Lottie. Is she a ghost? I don’t know. What I do know is that I have never lived anywhere as warm, cozy and welcoming as our home. I also know that just because something can’t be explained doesn’t mean it’s frightening.
6. Would you want to have the experience again?
We’d have moved long ago if it made us uncomfortable sooo …