SUNSHINE,FRIDAY AND GHOSTS

Hello everyone,

What a lovely day it is today.  The sun is shining and it`s feeling really warm and on top of that it`s friday.  What could be better?  I went shopping with Kerry this morning for Jim`s birthday present for Monday.  She bought him a nice shirt which I know he will like.  Shopping is a slower process than it was with Kerry now. Being 26 wks pregnant does tend to slow you down a bit, so we just wandered around at her pace, not easy for me because I`m a fast walker and I just whizz around the shops when I`m on my own.  We didn`t get home until after 2pm and then I snatched something to eat and took Jake for a hort afternoon walk just to stretch his legs ( he`d already had a long run in the park with Jim this morning) then it was back here and finally computer time.  Speaking of which,  I heard on the radio this morning about a study somewhere that has found that people who are addicted to reading email daily are in danger of becoming less intelligent.  They call it infomania I think, I won`t worry because with my brain I doubt it`ll make much difference lol!  So whilst suffering from infomania I`ll have to check my email and before i go to wish you all a very nice weekend and may the weather be kind to you.  ;-)

PS:  For Sara,  I will post some garden pics when the clematis flowers.  The garden is rather `new` looking at the moment, and my `beautiful` new plants are not really much more than twigs, but in a couple of weeks my orange azalea will open and there will be a great photo opportunity and then later the summer jasmine.  :-)

 

PPS:  A now a ghost story which may be familiar to my American friends.  It`s called............................

                                              THE `BELL WITCH`

John Bell lived with his wife, four sons and a daughter on a farm in rural Tenessee.  Betsy, the daughter, became the focus of the hauntings of a spirit now referred to as the `Bell Witch`.  The disturbances started in 1817 and were initially, no more than the sound of scratching and the occasional knock.  Soon however, bedclothes were being pulled from people as they slept and there were odd noises as though of someone choking.  Furniture began to move, stones were thrown and then the spirit started to slap Betsy across the face.  She would hear the noise of a blow and then her face would redden in the pattern of a hand.  On many occasions her hair would be pulled violently and painfully.  Obviously now the target of the the spirit`s malevolent, Betsy was soon tired out and eventually John Bell sought help for his daughter from a neighbour James Johnson, who was a very much liked and respected lay preacher.  Johnson very quickly came to the conclusion that it was not practical jokes that were being played, and he decided that the only thing to do was try to contact the spirit.  It became apparent after a while that the spirit was trying to communicate, and according to one account, `It commenced whistling when spoken to, in a low broken sound, as trying to speak in a whistling voice, and in this way progressed until the whistling sound was was changed to a weak, fluttering whisper uttering indistinct words.  The voice however, gradually gained strength in articulating and soon the utterances became distinct in a low whisper so as to be understood in the absence of other noise.`

Now that it could form words, it started to tell stories that were sometimes contradictory.  It was the spirit from a body that was buried in the surrounding forest;  it came from a settler who had hidden his fortune in the woods and had died before he could retrieve it;  and it was an evil conjuring by a local woman, Kate Batts, who had the reputation of being a witch.  Then John Bell started to suffer attacks.  The ghost declared that it would give him a dose of such a medicine that he would die from it.  His jaw then swelled, and he suffered violent spasms and convulsions until one day he fell into a coma from which he never awoke.  When he eventually died, the spirit filled the house with cries of triumph that were repeated at his funeral a few days later.

For a short period after this, the remaining members of the Bell family had peace, and then in 1821, one evening as they sat around the supper table, a large smoking sphere rose from the grate and gradually vanished as it turned to smoke.  The spirit`s voice cried out, ` I`m going to be gone for seven years.`  It never returned.