Landing in clover

another hopeful - but enough of these dog show hopefuls- I must tell of an amusing incident. I live in Savannah - a city in the South of the USA that is just dripping with colonial history, antebellum history, and ghost history. The whole beautiful and haunting place couldn't have been designed better by a Hollywood set designer. Spanish moss, ancient oaks with their resurrection ferns and the land itself interlaced with lazy rivers whose many tributaries empty into a sometimes treachurous sea.

Savannah, a city said to be built on the bones of the dead, has many ghost stories. To this point, we had a young lady stay with us who solemnly swore she had "an encounter". She said that in the evening she felt a presence. She was staying in an upstairs bedroom in one of the twin beds. My son was in the other twin bed. Restless and feeling thirsty, she went downstairs in the middle of the night, got a glass of water and then brought it back upstairs, placing it on the nightstand between the two beds. Sometime in the night the glass shattered. She and said son brought me up to see the very evidence of the visitation by some unseen malicious hand. Well the glass was certainly in a million little diamond looking shards but what to think.!!! We are living in a relatively new house - true we are on ancient land and within a short walk to the river and the marsh but still.

I mentioned it to my regulars at the quilt shop and instead of laughing outright, the native Savannahians nodded solemnly and said that our house and the others in my neighborhood, were built on the grounds of an old plantation =we are across from Rose Dhu island and Vernonburg. And they added, there are old burial sites all over there. Lawsy mercy Says i to myself - that explains the mushroom fairy rings that appear in our yard with persistent recurrence. (I read somewhere that mushrooms growing in formation indicate the presence of buried organic matter - massa in the cold cold grave says I).

Figure all this into your assesment of what occured last night. I was up very late - in my headquarters of all things creative. This headquarters is actually the guest bedroom. It is upstairs and has lovely wide windows looking onto a primordial forest beyond the backyard. It is a nature preserve and there are wild magnolias, live oak, hickory and palm and bo coo spanish moss, as well as a great horned owl. It was well after midnight and I was tickling the old computer trying to get her to print my little creations. She has become quite fiddly to work with - so well onto 2 Am, I was aware that I was not alone in the room. A slight rustling - said I to myself -aha, a squirrel has penetrated the fortress that is the roof and has made a home in the attic overhead. But lo, there was a definite shifting sound. It sounded like a heavy body turning in the double bed and making itself more comfortable.

Could this be the glass breaking presence! I froze in silence and listened intently. At first faintly, then with greater volume, I distinctly heard heavy and rhythmical breathing which soon gave way to definite snoring. I broke out in a cold sweat and tried to think how one greets a spirit. Was it some pookah who erased my email, jammed my printer, caused the treacle like pace of my hardrive? I sought the comfort of my own snoring husband and fled to my little bed downstairs.

The next morning, I fed the outdoor cats. What's this - only two arrived for breakfast - grumbling and showing their displeasure at breakfast served at 7 Am instead of 5 AM. The third, it transpired - had been the midnight snorer. They are Burmese and adore their ease. What's a down comforter unless you are under it. I never saw her go upstairs - she generally stays out with her cranky hellacious son and her maiden cousin. The three bring down a squirrel a week and lay waste to the little chameleons and snakes that dare bask on a sunny day. Normally, they prefer stalking and patroling the tropical jungle that is our yard - you couldn't tempt them indoors with a fat mouse. Last night, however, it was a bit chill - and lady cat deigned to come in and squirm about in all her sensuous splendour under the down comforter on the guest bed in the temple of creativity. Even as I write this - hell cat has decided that he too should stretch out and eventually snore under the down comforter. Such is winter in Savannah - a place of ghosts or not - but definitely a place whre three little cats are in jungle heaven.