Way too long

Well, a lot has been happening, and not much at the same time, if that makes sense.

Again, I have been neglecting this journal.

I really wanted to update to tell you all about my weekend last weekend. We had the Paranormal Society in the museum. They arrived at 11pm. There were three Visitor Assistants working, myself, John and Martin, as well as two duty managers. We split into three groups with one VA per group. We did a wander around the museum with all of them. They took temperatures and electro magnetic radiation levels, as base lines for future reference. Then the three groups went their separate ways. I was supervising a group of three, two men and a woman. All the lights were off in the galleries, so we all had to carry torches around with us. The museum seemed like a completely different place without the normal lights on, without the normal visual signals I get when I am wandering about the place. I had been asked if I felt strange wandering about the galleries after what I saw etc but because the galleries were so dark it honestly felt like a completely different building.

I took the group to a section of the second floor that is quite open, at their request. They set up their video cameras etc. The woman in the group claimed she heard a scream from an old set of stairs we have hidden. They then all sat in a circle, with me about 10 metres away just watching, and tried to "contact" the spirits. A few minutes passed and they all kind of moved, then the video camera display flicked off, then Karen started yelling in this really deep voice. She was yelling "murder" and "murder me". It completely freaked me out as I had no idea what would happen, or that this woman had the tendency to get "possessed" by spirits!! Sitting in the dark and hearing screaming coming from a petite woman is rather unnerving. I told the others on the museum staff of my experience, so the next time the groups went, I suddenly had all the media people following my group. Made me feel much better really.

The second session we went to the 1st floor in our new study centre. We have a green skiff in there, and Karen obviously picked up someone again. This time she "became" Sid, a 47 year old man, who again was angry. He said that his friends were laughing at us, and warned of another spirit who was nasty. Every spirit that appeared that night seemed to be really angry. The angry ones obviously stick around, while the content ones move on! Karen also saw a prostitute by the name of Harriet in the study centre as well.

The third floor yielded Harold, who was by far the most nasty. All sitting around in a circle, holding hands, they tried to contact the spirits again. I was in the circle this time. Everyone else was talking about how cold they felt, but I felt nothing. Karen then suddenly moved out of the circle, as if she were being pulled by her ankles by a rope. Quite strange to see, but I was becoming very skeptical by this time of the night (morning!!). Harold kept yelling that he wouldn't harm Karen. The next session Karen decided she wanted to face Harold again, so everyone this time went up to the third floor to see if they could talk to Harold. I sat this one out, along with Martin and John and the media people. Harold appeared again, and this time Karen went all stiff and fell over, only being held up by the people next to her.

The whole experience has not made me believe or not believe any more than I did before. I admit that by the end of the evening, after I had seen this woman be "possessed" not once, but four times, it became quite old news. The first time freaked me out, then it just became funny really. I believe that there may indeed be spirits etc floating out there, and if that is the case, I believe that they want to be left alone!!

The highlight of my night was crawling into my sleeping bag in the soft play area of the children's gallery and going to sleep for a few hours.

Otherwise, I am still enjoying work. We had our Christmas party today, which was held in the Guildhall, a lovely building in the City of London. There were about 1000 people there from all different sectors. My workmates are really delightful and I have made some good friends. They succeeded in keeping me amused for the entire party, which was great. And it was certainly something to be able to eat lunch in a 15th century building! And all for a tenner!! :-)

I am really looking forward to going to Hungary. We fly out on Friday morning. We decided to stay in a cheap hotel near Heathrow the night before to save stress and a lot of time, seeing as though we have to be at the airport at 6.30am!! We are living in east London and to get to west London for that hour would be quite crazy. We have 10 days or so in Budapest. We would both like to get out of Budapest for a couple of day trips. I will ask my family what they recommend we do. We will be spending Christmas in Budapest. I have no idea what Hungarians do for Christmas, but I am looking forward to finding out!

I met up with an old school friend this morning before my Xmas party. Oiwei and I went to PLC together, and I last saw her at the school reunion we had in 2002. She is over in Baltimore studying for her PhD. She is over in London for a few days with her man. It was so nice to see her, even if it was brief! I showed them Westminster Abbey (from the outside anyway), the Embankment, and along the Thames. We will meet them tomorrow night for a curry in Brick Lane perhaps. Not sure what time Scott will join us as he is doing a lot of overtime before we go away.

I hope I have covered everything. :-)

Merry Christmas everybody. Love and hugs to you all!!

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