(Part 1 of 2)
Back in the summer, the wife and I were fortunate enough to have been invited to a wedding just outside of Stow on the Wold, in the lovely Cotswolds. The drystone walls, the cozy pubs = We LOVE it round there and were very much looking forward to it.
Being the resourceful type, my wife pre-booked our accommodation very early on with a plan to stay in the same “boutique” b&b inn on the night before and the night of the wedding. Being less than a mile away from the venue, this suited us down to a tee and would ensure we’d make said event (we have a bad rep for timeliness ).
With the wedding fast approaching, less than 3 months away, the bride-to-be dropped the wife and I a FB messenger chat (why anyone chooses to use this monstrosity of an app goes beyond me) asking if we’d like a room at the wedding venue. The only snag: it was for the night of the wedding only. We gratefully accepted her kind offer as it made the logistics of “doing a sneaky swerve” straight into bed, so much easier . But it presentented us with another issue: the previously booked inn 1 mile away had a 2 night minumum stay over the weekend policy. We needed a new home the night before...
Late summer in the Cotswolds with limited notice left us with thin choices. But out of the blue, my wife announced she’d found somewhere & booked it. Being a typical bloke, I didn’t bother to ask her what / where as I’d get to it nearer the time.
With 3 days to go (Wedding on a Saturday, staying in the Cotswolds Friday & Saturday) it was time to get my bearings for the trip ahead and ask my wife where we were staying etc.
Now... at this stage it’s probably best that I inform you that my wife is
totally freaked out by suggestions of spookiness / ghosts etc. One of our early movie dates was “The Others” and she planted her head into my shoulder for the
entire movie (there was upside in the courting period ). I can’t even joke about this sort of thing with her even today, which is extremely difficult for a natural prankster like me. She’ll laugh at Freddy Krueger, be v bored by it even, hence the fear is very specific. Anyway....
So..... my wife tells me we’re staying at
The Ragged Cot in Minchampton (
http://www.theraggedcot.co.uk/). It’s a lovely place BUT.... I’m searching via Google ofcourse and in the drop down of top related searches, clear as day is:
the ragged cot haunted - Indeed there is an interesting, if gruesome backstory to the Ragged Cot which I’ll allow you to check out at your own leisure (I’ve waffled on too much as it is to add all the details here ).
But what was I to do? If I let my wife know, there was absolutely no way we’d be staying there. NO F’ING WAY. And with such short notice we’d have nowhere to stay the Friday night, exponentially increasing the chances of us missing the wedding the next day (trust me!). Besides, these stories are only a bit of fun aren’t they? They seem to do the job of attracting curious tourists for a pie and a pint too...
So I did what any decent guy would do - I didn’t say anything to my wife.
So as planned, we set off mid Friday afternoon, bracing ourselves for a battle along the M4 to reach our interim destination:
The Ragged Cot
(Did the wife find out? Did we even get to stay? Or was it all much ado about nothing? Look out for part 2 over the next few days where I describe how events unfolded... )
