....... and it was a very long way from being funny. It's just becoming dark and I've gone down to feed our pair of barn owls, as I do at dusk, I think it's when they would normally hunt. I always put the food out in the flight on different branches so they have to work at it and can't just take it for granted, I feed them mice and chicks which arrive in cartons, frozen and ready to thaw out, so they have all the nourishment they need. So tonight I went down and we're having a massive storm with sheet lightning and torrential rain which means I feed them in their shed as they don't like to get wet. The lighting in the shed is deliberately dim and it was quite eerie with all the lightning strikes. The owls were sitting together, on a branch, illuminated like two ghosts and looking straight at me with those big round black eyes. I'm usually quite at ease with them but tonight was different. They were unnerved by the storm and behaving strangely, making weird clicking noises and rocking back & forth. I wanted out of there so placed the chicks around the shed but saved one for Skye who feeds from my hand whereas Bonnie won't. He just wouldn't come to me and started this crazy screeching that put me right on edge. So, as a last resort I held the chick out to him and ..... it cheeped! I must have squeezed the last drops of air out of it's lungs, I wanted me Mam
My old man told a story very much in this vein. In the late 50's on a run bringing rolled steel from Canada to the UK , one of the deck hands went missing in stormy weather off the coast of Canada, the ship was searched and the Coast Guard alerted, despite a 24 hour search , no trace was found. His next of kin were informed and the ship duly docked, loaded up and set off back to the UK. The weather was still rough on the return trip and routine checks were made on the cargo holds checking the lashings on the steel rolls which could be dangerous if loosened. Being below decks torches had to be used in the pitch black conditions. on one such check, suddenly two feet ahead of him a ghostly face appeared in the torchlight, it was the missing crewman alive but not at all well, who gave a man, not easily frightened, quite a turn.
I think he had some kind of a mental breakdown after a domestic upheaval, I was told the story about 40 years ago but far more vividly than I can relate now, but it was one of those that live on, and there are a few.
I remember when I was little, falling asleep in bed, late at night. Eyes shut, something disturbed me enough to want to open them, just had the urge to. Some bloke had jumped onto our extension roof and decided to peer into my window. He had his hands and face pressed up against the glass. Looked something like this...... please log in to view this image It must have been so dark in my room that he couldnt see me but I could see him. I just sat up watching him waiting for his eyes to meet mine. After a while, what seemed like about a minute but was probably only about 5-10 seconds I just slid under my duvet, when I had the courage to peek from under them only seconds later he had gone. Also when I was little I remember waking at the idea that something was at the end of my bed. Just as I began to feel satisfied that there wasnt, something/somebody tickled my foot. They slowly drew a perfect circle, using what felt like a finger, on the bottom of my foot. Straight under the covers!!!!! I wore my slippers in bed for at least a year after that.
i once asked our sergeant major for his picture he smiled and gave it , after a few mins and him knowing me he asked whats the pic for, i said scaring the children when naughty, he was that chuffed with the reply he put me forward for a promotion and said up to now no one has had the balls to do that.
I went for a walk up Muggleswick, in the Derwent Valley today. Lovely part of the world on the edge of the moors. Myself and some family ambling along until we get attacked by honey bees. A bunch of us stung several times, with the ****ers getting tangled up in the lasses hair, so we had to ****ing leg it. I got stung on the head, arm and leg. Bonkers, surreal experience. Not very pleasant either. Thought it was just some angry wasps til my brother in law said it was more likely honey bees disturbed by summat, smells of perfume (not me) or the humid weather.....
They do produce 'honey' though. Not in the way we know it's they mix their sugar with pray(dead insects) to feed the larve. I do think there a some social wasps that produce edible honey but don't quote me on that, it might be hornets.
If the stingers were left in you then they were honey bees but if not then probably hornets or wasps.. Could have been worse, it could have been female horseflies attacking you but regardless of that, not a nice experience for you and the family..
