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Scunnerlugzz said:
You got a bit lost, and seem to have enjoyed it. No worries there.
You may find this happening more, and my simple advice was ask someone who knows.
I was never really lost - the sun was out, to aid my sense of direction. And the whole affair took place in a very limited geographical area, so I knew I'd soon be on a familiar road.

I only saw two other people on my walk, a courting couple, but never got close enough to them to speak. And anyhow, by then I already knew I wasn't where I expected to be, but no matter, the sun was out and my famous sense of direction was working fine.

My misperception was assuming that two roads I knew of linked up, when actually they didn't.

And if I had met someone and asked the way, I'd probably have got the classic response:
"If I was you, I wouldn't start from here!" :D
 
Sorry Rynner, but I simply can't concieve of living in an area for 18 months and not knowing my way to the pub, and never having asked anyone where "that" road went, even if it was an odd route.

Obviously we live in very different countries.
 
Scunnerlugzz said:
Sorry Rynner, but I simply can't concieve of living in an area for 18 months and not knowing my way to the pub, and never having asked anyone where "that" road went, even if it was an odd route.
FFS!

I knew my way to the pub. The alternative route (as I thought) wasn't.
And if I had asked 'where that road went', I'd have been told "Nowhere!"

Are you an idiot, or am I?

I know which way I'm voting! ;)
 
Today, in the shower, I noticed an odd intermittent noise coming from the extractor fan. I thought maybe the bearings were going, and I was expecting it to clatter to a halt any minute, perhaps spitting out broken fan blades.

However, when I finished my shower (fan still functioning), I went back to the living room - and discovered a workman's van in the street outside, operating some noisy grinding or sawing machinery, which was clearly the source of the intermittent noise! :oops:
 
I confused myself today...

Preparing to go away on a cruise, I'd started two lists, of things to do, and things to pack.

Today I noticed that my 'To do' list included Empty Bins.

And then I saw my 'To Pack' list also included Bins


Took me a while to realise that I had to empty my rubbish bins, and pack my binoculars! :roll:
 
Took a couple of pics of the sunset through my bedroom window recently - I thought the raindrops on the window would add to the interest.

But when I put the pics on computer tonight, it appeared that someone had dumped an old washing machine in the garden - how had I missed seeing that?!

But closer examination revealed that the 'washing machine' was in fact a reflection of my camera in the window, well-lit by the sunset glow!

Doh! :oops:
 
:rofl:

Did you spot the old leather handbag too?
 
As I was not sunbathing in Rynner's garden at the time, no, he wouldn't have.
 
I get the feeling that I may have missed a couple of verses of "Roedean School"... :(
 
I mispent some of my youth, like many heavy metal/goth enthusiast types, hanging out in cemeteries with friends. One particularly spooky full-moon-lit night, when everyone already seemed on edge, one friend freaked because she saw a light containing a running human figure pass in front of a wall. It happened several times, and though I told her it was just car lights passing through trees, which it clearly was, I don't think she was ever convinced. I learned a little about how our minds work from that night, I think. I've since learned that psychologists believe we are programmed to see human figures and faces in random images. Coupled with a spooky night in a cemetery, who can blame her for seeing things?

Unless my mind was just rationalising away some genuine horror it couldn't deal with!
 
On my way home yesterday, I saw a teenage girl talking to some friends. She held a lead which split to hold two animals, but from my position I could only see the tops of two furry heads above a kerb. I knew the kerb wasn't very high, so I assumed she held a couple of little puppies.

But no - when I got closer, it turned out they were ferrets! Cute little devils too! :D (I don't think I've ever seen a ferret on a lead before.)
 
When I lived in Hungary I saw pet ferrets on leads. They always walked along the side of the pavement away from the road, weaving entertainingly around signposts and drainpipes, and in Hungarian they're called ferrets. :lol:
 
Most Forteans probably know how magicians use misdirection to work their tricks.

But it seems there's something else going on as well - our eyes flick around a scene we're observing, but while the eye means from one point to another we are blind!

This is demonstrated on the pop-science prog "Bang goes the Theory"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_9/

(Watch from 19 minutes in.)

This was new to me!
 
Ive noticed when almost asleep sometimes I become aware of 3 sets of breathing. Ie, my own, my boyfriends and then an apparent 3rd set :shock:

Recently I had a bought of insomnia and as I lay in bed fully awake for 2 nights in a row I discovered that my boyfriend simply sometimes starts to breath in an odd manner.
Glad thats sorted though, it was freaking me out! :lol:
 
In the wee hours last night I was aroused by a sound of something clattering or falling. Maybe it had come from my next-door neighbour, or the flat above...

I looked out of my front door into the communal corridor, but all was quiet.

This was a real guilt-inducing scenario - I should do something in case one of my neighbours was in trouble. But what if it was just a mere domestic mishap? I'd probably wake someone from a previously undisturbed sleep if I knocked on the wrong door to ask.

Or if it was the right one, they might resent the fact that I appeared to be complaining about the noise!

But it might have been something outside, with the severe gales last night, so, hearing nothing more, I went back to bed.

Just as well!

In the morning, I discovered that an adhesive hook on the side of a cupboard in my kitchen had come unstuck, causing a plastic colander to fall and knock over a couple of empty cider bottles...

Doh!
 
Channel 'crocodile' turns out to be wood

Coastguards in Dover and France say a large crocodile sighted in the English Channel was actually a piece of wood.

Officials have said that the wood probably did look like a crocodile from a distance.

Bathing in the sea in and around Boulogne-sur-Mer in France was suspended on Friday as a precaution while a search was conducted

The claim of a crocodile sighting was made in a message which had been sent to a local newspaper, La Voix du Nord.

According to the newspaper, an animal rescue charity which had not been told directly of any sightings asked for the water to be cleared while a search took place.

A spokesman for Boulogne-sur-Mer town hall had previously said it was thought that the claim was "a joke".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11046562

Once when sailing in Harwich, to avoid unnecessary calls for the lifeboat, I reported a floating log to the harbour authority - it had a branch sticking up which from the shore would have resembled a person waving for help! The harbour launch came and removed it.
 
Today, sitting out in the sun reading, I heard the sound of an aircraft. Earlier a small plane had flown by towing a banner, and I thought that maybe it was coming round again. I watched the sky for it, thinking I might take a photo, but what I spotted was a silvery sphere.

Only this morning I'd read about the helium balloons accidentally released over Manhatten, so I assumed this was something similar. But as it moved across the sky the sun suddenly reflected off a tail, and I realised I was actually watching a small helicopter, much higher than I'd assumed the 'balloon' to be. It wasn't one of the usual Navy choppers we get round here, as they have a different outline.

I did try for a pic, but by then it was so far away it'll probably just look like a dot!
 
This afternoon I was reading a book in a quiet country pub - in fact I was the only customer at the time. Suddenly, two young girls (about 3 and 6) ran through the bar, and one of them shouted out "Lose weight!" Now I'll admit I could do with losing a few pounds, but I felt it was very bad manners for them to comment like that. "Kids today.." I thought.

It was only later that I realised that what I'd heard was actually "Louise, wait!" :oops:
 
My 85 year old neighbour was commenting the other day about the abbeygators that keep going over.

Funnily enough, the misperception seems to have been mine for assuming he'd scrunged up 'helicopter', it clicked with me the other day that word is almost 'aviator'.

Either that or the wooden crocodile has got to the nearby abbey ruin. :lol:
 
When I lived in a flat in a coverted mansion in Clevedon, an elderly neighbour complained that his doctor had not been able to help him with the Tinnitus he was suffering. He felt as if he was 'going mad', he said. 'I'm not imagining it'.

much later I popped in about some photos he wished to show me and I heard a faint bleeping noise from high above me. There on the Victorian ceiling was a long forgotten smoke alarm with its near-dead battery giving off a faint regular bleep.
 
Today, on a bus, I spotted a sign on a lamp-post ahead. It seemed to say Xmas Trees!
I thought, "In August!"

But as we got closer, it morphed into "Xpress Tyres"... :oops:
 
I have a condition that causes balance difficulties, and since Saturday night I've had several vertigo episodes. I also sometimes get strange visual effects - my ear doctor thinks these are migraine, but they've never been disruptive or consistent enough to send me through med-hell trying to get a diagnosis. I have bad astigmatism and wear reading and distance glasses, the prescriptions on both of which are a little outdated. It is really freaking hot here right now - the high yesterday was 101, and it felt comparatively cool! We only have window unit air conditioners, only in the study and in the bedroom. I am sensitive to caffeine, and had drunk a cup of fully caffeinated tea that morning in order to be able to function against the vertigo effect.

So yesterday, after the temperature dipped down into the 90s, I was watching TV, wearing my reading glasses, in an un-air-conditioned upstairs room with my husband and beginning to crash hard while still buzzing a little from the caffeine. I leaned my head against his shoulder, facing downward along his arm, and closed my eyes, but almost immediately my head started spinning, so I opened them in order to fix my eyes on one point and stop the spinning. The reason for the spinning illusion is that your eyes are dancing around in an uncontrolled fashion; consciously fixing them on one point ends the illusion, and the remaining vertigo symptoms are by comparison mild.

When I opened my eyes last night, however, I saw my husband's arm covered in white fabric spotted all over with small black dots, about like those on dotted swiss but in a more random pattern. This was disconcerting and made the eye-fixing trick difficult to do, but I managed it, all the time staring at this strange fabric, which I knew didn't exist. Gradually I got depth and color perception back, sorted out his bare arm from the background, and realized that the fabric was in fact my sundress, which has a pattern of red cherries on a white background. The cherries are much larger than the dots I saw and no part of the dress covered my husband's arm, but I saw one merge into the other and the arm emerge from the fabric. The entire effect was disagreeable and made me a little sick to my stomach, but once it was over I was able to go downstairs to close the house up and freshen my drink (I drink more than a gallon a day in this weather; have to, as one of the pills I take to treat my condition is a diuretic) without any bad balance moments.
 
PeniG you can get multifocal glasses and they are really good once you get used to them. I used to have vertigo and was told to keep off salt and stress. Stemetil gets rid of the symptoms pretty quickly.
 
This morning I went to the bathroom to take a shower. As I took off my dressing gown, I heard a metallic clatter. Thinking I'd knocked over a can of air freshener that stands on the floor nearby, I bent down to pick it up - only to find that it was quietly standing in its normal place! :shock:

Perhaps my dressing gown had flicked it against the wall, causing the sound, but it then toppled back into position without actually falling..?

Then I noticed I couldn't hear the extractor fan running, so I wondered if that had blown a fuse or something. My hearing is not reliable, however, so I got a rod and reached up to the extractor with it - the gentle vibration confirmed the fan was working as usual.

So was the sound a symptom of my hearing problems...?


Suddenly :idea: the penny dropped: I went to the front door, and sure enough there were two letters lying beneath the letter box, which has a metal flap... :oops:

It was just a coincidence that I took my dressing gown off at the precise moment the postman delivered my mail! (rynner gets there in the end.. :roll: )
 
I guess as you get older, directional hearing is one of the first things to get confuzzled.
My right ear is on the fritz, whereas my left ear has super-duper hearing - leading to a bit of an imbalance. This means my directional hearing isn't as good as it used to be.
Maybe that's what's happening to you, Rynner? Have you got better hearing in one ear than the other?
 
Mythopoeika said:
I guess as you get older, directional hearing is one of the first things to get confuzzled.
My right ear is on the fritz, whereas my left ear has super-duper hearing - leading to a bit of an imbalance. This means my directional hearing isn't as good as it used to be.
Maybe that's what's happening to you, Rynner? Have you got better hearing in one ear than the other?
Yep, I've mentioned elsewhere that I went deaf in my right ear over just three days last January. My left ear is not so good either. :(
 
Out on my travels today, I spied this attractively laid out roundabout, glowing in the November sun, so I took a snap.
(The roundabout is where the A30 meets the A394 and a couple of minor roads, between Penzance and Marazion.)

Mispercep1.jpg


But what's that, bottom left? Have the gardeners left a hosepipe there?
On closer inspection (next pic) it looks more like a streak of light which curves and disappears into the undergrowth. Tinkerbelle on speed? A miniature UFO?

Mispercep2.jpg


Sadly, the truth is more boring. The picture was taken from inside a bus, and the streak is a reflection of a handrail caught in the window! (Top left of the first pic also shows the reflection of the windows opposite.)


But if you prefer conspiracy theories there are a couple of other things to bear in mind: the bus does not normally go near this roundabout, but today the centre of Marazion was closed off (roadworks..?) so the driver had to find an alternative route. But perhaps the MI5 equivalent of Mulder and Scully were investigating something weird there! :shock:

This idea is boosted by the fact that the bus encountered another Road Closed situation in Praa Sands, and had to turn around and leave by the road it came in on, so passing Pengersick Castle twice.
(Pengersick has a spooky reputation that Wiki tries to debunk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pengersick ... ick_Castle

But I know it's evil - it fried my previous camera! :shock: I made sure my camera was switched off both times today, just in case...)

An interesting day out! ;)
 
I forgot to mention that when I got home, a BT van was nearby, and people were working on a BT street cabinet...

But I know it's MI5 tapping my phone and internet connections! :madeyes:
 
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