Fairlight
Junior Acolyte
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2018
- Messages
- 43
- Location
- England
This happened in the summer of 2003. Myself, my partner and our youngest son who was 3 years old at the time were taking a short break in North Yorkshire, England.
We had been hoping to find guest house accommodation, just basic bed and breakfast, and we were pleased to find something just a little different to the usual. It was a substantial detatched stone property which had once been the local Vicarage in the village of Ruswarp. From Ruswarp a footpath can be taken to the historic seaside town of Whitby, famous for its Captain Cook and Bram Stoker associations amongst many others, this is a walk of about a mile. The village itself has a pub with a beer garden overlooking the river Esk with the railway running past (both of which I find rather pleasing) so it’s an ideal base for a short holiday. Now for the spooky stuff (which, to be honest really wasn’t very spooky)
The three of us had returned to the old Vicarage in mid afternoon. In all likelihood we had been over to Whitby and had lunch and probably an alcoholic beverage or two (the three year old would not have partaken of the latter) but in any event I really don’t think that consumption of alcohol (even if that did happen) would have been a factor in the events that followed.
We went to our room on the first floor of the building, I suspect our boy was tired or already asleep by the time we arrived back and he was certainly asleep in or on the single bed in the room shortly after. The room itself was quite large and there was an adjoining bathroom w/c.
The door to enter/exit was in the right corner of the room and a window to the outside of the house was on the far wall (viewed from the doorway). To the left was a single bed ( furthest from the entrance and closest to the window) then a double bed and next to this was an armchair. Against the right hand wall was a settee (sofa) I sat in the armchair and my partner sat on the bed (her back propped up on the headboard and her legs lengthways on the bed if you know what I mean)
We were both reading (I remember that she was reading the Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner, not sure what I was reading....I mention these details because I have been concentrating on recalling as much as possible about the incident/ room layout etc and only then checking my recollection with hers and this has confirmed that our recollections tally in all the important details)
As I was reading I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. A black cat had jumped up onto the back of the sofa (moving from right to left) and loped across the top of the sofa towards the direction of the door. Now the door would have almost certainly been closed, I would always do this automatically in these settings to indicate that the room is occupied.
It would be reasonable to assume in the circumstances that one might get up and look for where the cat had gone but this idea never crossed my mind, and neither was I surprised that the cat had disappeared, I unquestioningly knew that there wasn’t a cat in the room.
I wasn’t in the least shocked and certainly wasn’t “spooked” (I can’t think of another word to suggest what perhaps should have been a mildly disconcerting experience)
It was actually quite a pleasing experience to actually witness something so strange. Forgive me if it appears that I am embellishing the story with superfluous detail but I think it is necessary to fully explain what I mean. The manner and movement of the cat was absolutely unremarkable, absolutely typical of the comfortably random and seemingly aimless way a cat will jump up on furniture, or a window sill, in a place where it feels comfortable. If (for example) a cat had somehow got into the room and had gone into hiding when strangers arrived and then made a run for it in panic, the movement would have been noticeably different. The only strangeness about this experience was that there was no cat there, and also that I knew there was no cat there.
I also realised with absolute clarity that there may be a potential to validate this experience by asking my partner if she also had noticed anything. I remember my precise words, I asked her very simply “did you see that?” and she replied immediately “yes, it was a cat”
We had been hoping to find guest house accommodation, just basic bed and breakfast, and we were pleased to find something just a little different to the usual. It was a substantial detatched stone property which had once been the local Vicarage in the village of Ruswarp. From Ruswarp a footpath can be taken to the historic seaside town of Whitby, famous for its Captain Cook and Bram Stoker associations amongst many others, this is a walk of about a mile. The village itself has a pub with a beer garden overlooking the river Esk with the railway running past (both of which I find rather pleasing) so it’s an ideal base for a short holiday. Now for the spooky stuff (which, to be honest really wasn’t very spooky)
The three of us had returned to the old Vicarage in mid afternoon. In all likelihood we had been over to Whitby and had lunch and probably an alcoholic beverage or two (the three year old would not have partaken of the latter) but in any event I really don’t think that consumption of alcohol (even if that did happen) would have been a factor in the events that followed.
We went to our room on the first floor of the building, I suspect our boy was tired or already asleep by the time we arrived back and he was certainly asleep in or on the single bed in the room shortly after. The room itself was quite large and there was an adjoining bathroom w/c.
The door to enter/exit was in the right corner of the room and a window to the outside of the house was on the far wall (viewed from the doorway). To the left was a single bed ( furthest from the entrance and closest to the window) then a double bed and next to this was an armchair. Against the right hand wall was a settee (sofa) I sat in the armchair and my partner sat on the bed (her back propped up on the headboard and her legs lengthways on the bed if you know what I mean)
We were both reading (I remember that she was reading the Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner, not sure what I was reading....I mention these details because I have been concentrating on recalling as much as possible about the incident/ room layout etc and only then checking my recollection with hers and this has confirmed that our recollections tally in all the important details)
As I was reading I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. A black cat had jumped up onto the back of the sofa (moving from right to left) and loped across the top of the sofa towards the direction of the door. Now the door would have almost certainly been closed, I would always do this automatically in these settings to indicate that the room is occupied.
It would be reasonable to assume in the circumstances that one might get up and look for where the cat had gone but this idea never crossed my mind, and neither was I surprised that the cat had disappeared, I unquestioningly knew that there wasn’t a cat in the room.
I wasn’t in the least shocked and certainly wasn’t “spooked” (I can’t think of another word to suggest what perhaps should have been a mildly disconcerting experience)
It was actually quite a pleasing experience to actually witness something so strange. Forgive me if it appears that I am embellishing the story with superfluous detail but I think it is necessary to fully explain what I mean. The manner and movement of the cat was absolutely unremarkable, absolutely typical of the comfortably random and seemingly aimless way a cat will jump up on furniture, or a window sill, in a place where it feels comfortable. If (for example) a cat had somehow got into the room and had gone into hiding when strangers arrived and then made a run for it in panic, the movement would have been noticeably different. The only strangeness about this experience was that there was no cat there, and also that I knew there was no cat there.
I also realised with absolute clarity that there may be a potential to validate this experience by asking my partner if she also had noticed anything. I remember my precise words, I asked her very simply “did you see that?” and she replied immediately “yes, it was a cat”