Answering Service

5 years ago, myself, my boyfriend Andrew and another couple decided to head out of London to the quiet countryside of Wales for our Easter break. We hired a cottage that belonged to a friends father, packed our bags and headed off.

The cottage was your typical old 18th century rambling farm house (built in 1795) with one room downstairs complete with wood fire, very limited hot water and two bedrooms and a bathroom.

We spent our days enjoying the simplicity and quietness of the area. However at night the house became quite eerie, due to the fact that it was so dark outside. Floorboards would creak above our heads, doors would open and close by themselves, lights would go on and off the pipes would rattle and moan, all the usual occurrences in a house on that age. Items of ours like car keys would be moved and plates that we were convinced we left on the floor would be stacked neatly in the kitchen. However there was four of us and we just assumed that someone else had moved them.

One day we decided to visit the local lake which was steeped in ancient myth and legend. We all climbed into the car and drove off. After several hours at the lake and tourist centre we headed to a little pub at the site for lunch. Whilst at this pub waiting for food some mutual friends of ours turned up, (they had been in the area for a wedding). One turned to my boyfriend and said "oh we're glad we caught you, when we couldn't see you at the lake we thought you might be in the pub!" Andrew replied "I don't understand? How did you know we were at the lake today"? and our friend replied "Well the woman at your cottage told us. we knocked on your cottage door, she answered and told us where you would be, she even gave us directions on how to get here - why?"

There was of course no one else staying at the cottage!! We knew there was no housekeeper or agent that looked after it and we were literally, miles away from anyone else.

When we returned to London I enquired into the previous occupant of the house and found out that an elderly farmers wife had been the last person to occupy it, but had died there in 1936. It had been used as a holiday home since the war.

We regularly tell people this story and we now have a running debate between our friends about it after the event who deserved to be the most scared, us for having to remain sleeping there until the end of our week or our friends who were directed to a lake by someone who must have been a ghost!