Ooooooeeeeeeeeeooooooooooo...
Two stories:

My dad's a surveyor. He's a rational sort of chap and has been in countless houses over the years and he says there's only ever been one that really shit him up.

Sometime in the 70s or 80s, I forget which but before I was born, he used to do surveys for British Rail before it was privatised. They asked him to inspect these two semi-detached cottages that were pretty much derelict and a good 500 years old. So my dad duly goes to have a look and he said they were the creepiest houses he has ever been in, with a real sense of evil and a generally bad atmosphere. Aside from that, when my dad was downstairs it felt like someone or something was upstairs and vice versa when he was upstairs. He couldn't get out fast enough.

Needless to say, he told them to demolish the fuckers.

The second instance involves my mum. When I was 10 years old and the night before Christmas Eve (that was a fun Christmas in our house), my grandma was taken ill and died suddenly.

My mum remembers my grandma (her mum) collapsing with suspected pneumonia and them calling an ambulance. My grandma was alive and just about conscious when they put her in the ambulance. My dad went with her and my mum followed behind in the car, having made sure me and my brother were being looked after by a family friend.

My mum says she was driving behind the ambulance, panicking about her mum, what would happen to her, thinking she would have to come and live with us as she was getting old and so on. At this stage, nobody really thought my grandma would die, just that she was very ill. Anyway, my mum stops at some traffic lights, thinking a million thoughts at once and then all of a sudden she is totally calm for no reason. It later turned out that this was at the same time as my grandma died in the ambulance. Probably a coincidence but we like to think maybe it was my grandma's way of telling my mum not to worry.
(claireyfairy There's a smell in here that will outlast religion, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 22:49, 3 replies)

How come your mum went in the car behind?
So your grandma was your mums mum? Id have thought shed have gone in the ambulance with her?
(Miggyman, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 23:02, closed)

@ miggyman
Probably had to organise someone to look after the kids.
(misskitty reeks of sex and turpentine; laudanum afternoons, Wed 9 Jul 2008, 2:24, closed)

Maybe the hospital was a long way off and they wanted to be sure about getting home afterwards, it being xmas and all.
Maybe Dad'd had a drink and didn't want to drive that night. Maybe Dad couldn't drive.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Wed 9 Jul 2008, 7:19, closed)