Those of you who have read my post about the Market Cross ghost know that I am not worried by ghosts at all, never having seen or been bothered by one, except for those two times when there were objects flying around the bathroom, and that was totally inexplicable.

One night, not very long ago, I was close to falling asleep when I realised that the bed, or rather, the mattress and duvet, were moving in a strange way. I will stop telling the tale for a moment while I explain a few things and set the scene.

Eight and a bit years ago I had my knees replaced, one at a time, six months apart. At that time, Julian had a part-time job which meant that he got up at 5 in the morning. Recovering from the ops meant I didn’t sleep well as I couldn’t lie on either side but only on my back which I don’t normally do and which makes me uncomfortable. With Julian going to bed early and getting up super-early and my not sleeping well, plus the fact that Rosie used to sleep on our bed with us (I know, I shouldn’t allow it!), eventually I moved into the smaller room next to our bedroom where there was a single bed and where I could sit up reading or listen to music without disturbing Julian. But, instead of sharing a king-size bed with Jules, Rosie insisted (!) on sleeping in a single bed with me. So, I moved into one of our two guest rooms – the one where there is a nice French double bed.

After I had recovered from my knee ops and Julian had retired from his job, I decided to stay where I was, in the guest room, after all, I was seventy-ish by then and, anyway, it was nice not to have to prod Julian in the side two or three times a night to stop him snoring! Also, the bed being a double meant that Rosie had her side and I had mine!

Back to the story: The mattress and duvet were moving. Rosie had died some months before, so it wasn’t her making the bed move and I was pretty certain it wasn’t me. I lay quite still, in order to try to understand what was happening. I was on my side, facing the windows, and I could feel the duvet being pulled sideways, very gently over my legs. At the same time the mattress was very subtly moving — I could hear, through the pillow, a spring or two moving occasionally. The longer I lay there, without moving, the longer the strange movements went on. Silently and lying very still, I went through all sorts of ideas in my head.

“Could Julian be playing some sort of trick on me? No, Julian doesn’t do things like that. Could it be thieves in the house playing a trick on me? Don’t be stupid!”

And I suddenly realised that what I was feeling was very similar to how it felt after Rosie had made herself comfortable on the bed. (When she got on the bed, she used to ‘flop’ down, causing the entire mattress to bounce once or twice, as she weighed several stone.)

And I thought, “OMG, it’s Rosie’s ghost!”

After a little while I turned to face the other direction and there was, of course, nothing there.

Last night I fell asleep after a long day. At about 2am I suddenly woke up to that same subtle movement of the bed, only this time, the movement — the slightest, most delicate, movement of the duvet — was over my ankles and feet. I lay there, at first trying to work out what had woken me and then to question the feelings around my feet and finally to think, “Could it be Rosie’s ghost?” If it is, I guess she misses me as much as I miss her!

My sweet Rosie