Ghost Strikes Again????

We had another strange little incident the other day.  K has been pickling sardines and another little fish called 'gavro'. They are one of his favourite meze with a glass of ouzo. 

Ouzo and pickled sardines

 He wanted some hot chilli peppers to put into the marinade.  We usually have a garden full of them.  They come up every year by themselves.  Oddly we discovered there were none this summer.  Another victim of the heatwaves?

But somewhere I had a small jar of these little devils.  They weren't where they were supposed to be and I couldn't find them anywhere.

The next morning, sitting  in the bathroom contemplating the peace and quiet I heard the noise of some thing-s tumbling from the top of a chest of drawers just outside.  Odd.  It definitely wasn't K.  He was still snoring.   No cats, no mice, no wind.

When I went out to investigate I discovered 2 packets of mosquito coils and a bottle of mosquito spray had fallen down.  How?  I hadn't nudged them walking past and they weren't on the edge anyway.

As I picked them up and went to put them back I saw in front of me that jar of dried chilli peppers.  I kid you not.  They had been hidden by that mosquito stuff, stuff that we don't use because we have no mozzies at the moment.

That little jar is hiding behind the blue bottle of mosquito spray

Now, if you remember, we reckon our ghost is Baba Lazaros, the previous owner of this house.  He was known to like his drink... and beat his wife.  The last time he appeared was after a big Easter feast and I bet he's popped up now  to see that K enjoys his pickled fish and ouzo.

K can 'poo-poo' all he wants about our ghost.  He has a boring explanation for all of the goings-on. I would not have found those chillis if the packets in front had not fallen down.  Baba Lazaros loved his wine and his ouzo.  Fresh pickled sardines are a traditional accompaniment to ouzo, along with octopus.    

I had better make sure K lights a candle for him again.  I don't really like things going bump in the night.  Or the morning.

Ghostly Goings-on

A friendly ghost?

We turned on the aircon the other day to 'heat'.  It wasn't cold enough to light a fire.  Raining, once again, chilly and damp.  Rain and sunshine.  Rain and sunshine. 

Anyway, we turned on the aircon.  When lunch time came around I turned it off because it blows right on to the dining table.  Pushed the control to the other end of the table.  We sat down to eat our fish heads and sheep's eyeballs, slurping away as one does when eating these delicaces.  

All of a sudden the aircon came to life.  All by itself.

We looked at each other.  No one had bumped the control with an errant elbow or a greasy finger, it was well out of reach.

The ghost!  That's the first appearance for a while.  K swears that the ghost  turned his electric blanket on the other night but I'm more inclined to think that a mere mortal forgot to turn it off that morning.

There was a wierd incident one night.  I was reading in bed, alone, when I felt a series of pats on my back.  Freaked me out of course but I'm just hoping it was a muscle spasm.  Nothing like that has ever happened before.  We've never actually felt the presence of a ghost.  There are no cold spots in the rooms or icy draughts which pass over giving you serious shivers.

Do we have another ghost?  Wait for the next installment.

Our Ghost Returned

Heebie jeebies, midnight hauntings, bad vibes, it's all happening here.  

You might remember one post I wrote about our ghost.  The ghost who activated the flash on my quad bike, usually on dark nights with no moon. Making the trek across the road to turn the damn thing off  was a rather scary trip.   

The same ghost, one presumes there was only one, would turn on the radio in the middle of the night, the radio that is in our back shed.  That was another scary after-midnight trek that I made many a time.


He, we thought it must be the previous owner, Mr Lambros, would also turn on the tap outside at inconvenient hours.  

I can't recall how many times I was woken in the middle of the night by the sound of music, the tik,tik,tik of the bike flash, or the noise made by water streaming into a marble sink.

Eventually we lit a candle for the ghost and since then all these odd occurences have stopped.  Completely.  Until a few days ago. 
Twice now we've woken in the middle of  the night to pitch black.  No hall light, no emergency light, just utter darkness.  A black out.  But not a general black out, nothing to do with the electricity department.  After a short investigation my inhouse electrician realised the switch had been short circuited (or whatever you call it when the general switch goes down),  flipped it up and all was well.  Till it happened the second time, once again around 5am.


K is looking at the power points outside to see if any have got wet during some very heavy winter rain.  I doubt that's the cause.  We're waiting to see if it happens again.

I thought it might be the ghost that was flooding our bathroom floor at odd times but that is 'probably' caused by a leaking pipe.  'Probably', because the water appears on the floor at  times when no-one has been into the bathroom and turned on a tap.  I'm watching that situation as well.

Those first ghost episodes came a to head when one night there was an almighty crash and we found that a heavy brass bell and a brass mortar and pestle had 'fallen' from the bookcase.   I suppose I should light another candle now before some other resounding crash or mystic episode breaks our peace and quiet.

Reminds me of a friend of mine here on Poros who moved into the house of a cousin of ours.  The cousin's elderly mother had lived all her life in the house and in later years she had a 'fascination' with taps.  She turned them all on and left the water running till one of the family found a flood on their daily visits.  In the end they turned her water off and removed some of the taps.  

When my friend moved into the house a couple of years later she would often find the kitchen tap running.  One day the tap turned itself on while she was in the kitchen with her back turned.  Fortunately J was not easily scared and talked to Kyria Marissa like an old friend.  She and the ghost had a very friendly relationship.   J found some of her bits and pieces around the house, some old shoes in the goat house, a small parcel of old valueless coins, some cutlery in the drawer of a kitchen table.  She cleaned all these up and kept them safe for the old lady so her ghost had no reason to be spiteful.

This head of garlic, wrapped in fishing net is hanging over our front gate.  It is supposed to keep away the evil eye, and vampires.  It does wonders for the vampires but it doesn't stop blue eyed fiends casting the evil eye on us and ghosts are unimpressed by a bit of garlic.