Hen Party

Its My sisters hen party tomorrow night (bridal shower) Now when hen party is mentioned over here it usually involves a stripper, adourning the bride to be with learner plates , a horned alice band and a mini veil.

Thankfully my sister has the good taste not to go down that road, its just a meal with 3 guys singing in sombreros. I have never been to a hens party before, most of my friends got married when I was in the uk, but as I write I remember going to a themed restaurant in Leicester with my friends Mel & Nick who were a delightful couple that simply loved 'entertaining nights' out. We would go to comedy clubs and they would host 70s barbeques etc Anyway the themed restaurant was called sunset boulevard, and as these places maybe quite common place in the states, they were still very much a novelty over in old blighty. Nick, was a comic genius in his own right seemed to revel in the anticipation. Mel had hyped this place all week telling me how there was a stage with an Elvis impersonator crooning over the 'hot bannana' sundaes. I was fired up and biting at the bit to get there. When we entered the place we noticed it was that the stage was right next to our table, I use to the word stage very loosely , this was more like the top of a school desk. Dont get me wrong the food was great and we never tired of the curled lip, gyrating hips and the 'thank you very much's but what made it for me was when during the interval of the show (bare in mind there were only about a dozen or so tables in the joint) when Elvis reached for his white towel and off stage for a breather he made his way to the bar where I was ordering drinks and I uttered the mythological sentence 'Elvis what are you having to drink?' to which he replied in full Elvis accent ' Rum and black, Bayhba!' I thought 'Pure class'. I dont think the 3 amigos tomorrow night will ever revive that kind of magic for me.

Grace Dieu

So its coming up to Halloween soon and I was watching ‘most haunted’ last night (google it most haunted living TV uk) when I started thinking about when I lived in the uk. Things where not going well between myself and my chap at the time and in order to get on with things, and keep my sanity I immersed myself in different activities. I remember waiting at the bus stop outside Sainsburys in Leicester and there was a newsagent right beside the stop with a small card in its window ‘ Ghost hunters wanted’ and I thought to myself ‘that’s the job for me’ (I needn’t explain that Im a bit of a fearless freap for that kinda thing). So anyways I get home and ring the number and I was told to meet in a pub called the ‘old plantagenet’ the following evening. Now I knew the pub and it was a bit of an old boys place but I went anyway expecting something like a funeral directors convention going on but I was surprised that the people I met where quite older than my young 25 years at the time, most where knocking around their late 40s but good people , down to earth and all open minded and a tad sceptical which I seen as a good sign.The next evening we went on a walk around the city where Andrew, the founder of SPECTA (Search for Paranormal Evidence and Compilation of Theory into Apparitions)gave us a tour of the local ‘haunts’. One of the guys involved , John, organised a vigil for the next night on the outskirts of Leicester in the middle of nowhere and it was called Grace Dieu Priory where a reputed phantom French nun had been making a regular appearance to Bus drivers and Road workers over the past year.


We arrived at Dusk , and because of the twilight we went into the local pub with the canny name of ‘the bloody nun’ over its door and had a wee dram too warm us up for the nights vigil. John, who I mentioned before, started to dole out equipment and being the owner of a very large camping and outdoors shop had state of the art stuff including night vision googles, torches walkie talkies etc



GRACE DIEU PRIORY, Leicestershire.
The ruin and vicinity is allegedly haunted by a phantom nun thought to be Roisia De Verdun, a Canoness who is interred at nearby Belton Church.

Now the ruins of Grace Dieu is quite sprawling and in the middle of A grazing/pasture fields, B disused railway lines and C small uphill forest. Everyone was assigned to a ‘post’ as to were most of the sightings had been reported. Mine however was overlooking the disused railway line and the only access to it was over some farming gates and uphill through the forest . Id didn’t help that I drew the short straw for going it on my own since there where odd numbers. So as the new initiate steeled myself in front of the group with a demeanour of a marine on a mission and off I went.

Like I said it was pastureland and in the middle of the night without night vision goggles (my luck there wasn’t enough to go around) and the cow pats underfoot made like a veritable mine field, Never was I so happy to be on my own trying not to slip every five seconds and master climbing six foot farm gates so as not to do myself an injury with my shit encrusted trainers , My dignity would have been in shreds had I had someone with me and I was even embaressed for myself with the clumsiness of walking every 5 feet with my arms shooting out scrabbling for balance. I eventually got to a clearing where I could see the rail track and most of the other points of which my colleagues where staked out about seventy feet below. I was just about to radio in that I was in situ when behind me I heard a crack.

In that millisecond it sounded like a bone but soon registered it was a branch but not under my foot , as I slowly turned my head I heard this primordial bray or grunt - My heckles shot up and I turned to face what ever demonic beast it was…

There in front of me was a fucking cow! A Cow! I and everyone else within the vicinity heard the thick Irish roar of ‘Oh lovin Jaysus!’ exasperate out from within me. You see I wasn’t out of the proverbial woods yet. I couldn’t see if this was a cow or a pissed off bull but as soon as I shone my torch and in panic told it to fuck off it sped off like a stolen Porsche. I remember just laughing myself sick; half with relief and half with the sheer comedy of it all, and trying to recant the story to the rest of them when they scrambled to my aid. That certainly was NOT the most eventful vigil I had with Specta but it was the funniest..