Clunker And Scrambled Hours

Last year I became a godmother, or faerie godmother, as is my self-appointed title. Last month I was babysitting the godson, or 'the Child' as we like to say in an ominous tone. 'Oh it's the Child, bring me the child' and so on. We also call him 'Boyo' 'cause it's funny. He's a placid baby, no lengthy screaming carry on thank goodness.

We don't have any children by choice and I think some of these odd occurrences have something to do with my godson being present at the time.

This happened on a Saturday night about two months ago. My man had gone out with the Child's parents for the evening leaving me holding the baby. Not really so, I've been little Miss Antisocial lately working on music, it's the only way to get it done.

The Child's parents have got him into a bit of a sleeping routine, and we're under strict instruction to keep it that way. The kid comes with equipment, among which is a Peppa Pig DVD. As a faerie godmother, and rational human being, I find Peppa Pig 'sucking' in nature, so, while here, the Child watches The Mighty Boosh. Get some surrealism into you, boy. Start 'em young. For Americans it's not children's programming but a bit like Sesame Street (on acid). The Child has just started crawling short distances and bloody hell does this complicate things. Boosh is a good distraction for staying out of mischief.

At about seven o'clock I put Boosh on and went outside for a cigarette. I know, role model of the year. Anyway, from the front I can watch him through the front window and, unless he's capable of teleporting, he didn't leave the blanket/rug play mat (?) on the floor. After around two minutes I heard a 'clunk clunk' which sounded like a mug being placed on the coffee table. The only object which I can imagine making that noise would've been an ashtray in the center of the coffee table. Far out of reach from mischievous hands. He hadn't moved around much, only to change direction towards a foam worm thing on the rug. I'm sure it wasn't the DVD because it was louder than the TV volume. Boyo was more concerned about the worm and didn't react to the sound as far as I could tell.

As a stand alone this isn't exactly submit worthy, and could've been anything mundane too. But it's probably worth a mention because of what happened later.

Later on, at about half nine, in preparation for his parents' return, I put the bottle in a bottle warmer. I don't know what these are called, it plugs in, it heats the formula. While that was on the go I took my mobile phone into the bathroom to switch it on and check for messages. Boyo was taking a nap and the phone makes a bunch of noise when it's switched on. So I take it into the bathroom, close the door, turn it on, put it on the sink and walk out, closing the door behind me. As I walked back to the kitchen I heard the phone go ping to indicate there were messages. At about the same time as I heard that I felt movement of air behind and the sound of the floor moving, as if someone had just rushed past behind me and gone into the bathroom. Then another 'clunk' in the bathroom. A different kind of 'clunk' to the one earlier. Things go bump at ours a lot, but usually checking the source of a sound gives no answers. I ignored these things for the moment.

A few minutes later I went back into the bathroom. First thing I noticed was the soap dispenser had moved from the back of the basin/bench to the middle, on the edge of the basin. Pretty sure I didn't bump it there when I put the phone in front of it. Position wise it doesn't make sense that I'd bump the soap dispenser while putting it where I did. Then the absence of messages on the phone confused me, there were none. Even though I'm certain I heard it go ping indicating there were. I guess what I heard could've been a distant car horn. But the whooshing past me, the clunk, and then the moved soap dispenser I can't explain.

The Child's parents were to return after ten, which they did. None of their gathering that night had messaged me. So that rules any of them out, and no one has since mentioned me ignoring their message. So I guess it was something else I heard.

The child wasn't present for this next bit of bizarreness. My husband reckons this might be connected to my hearing the phone ping weeks earlier. He surmises there's been a displaced time sequence. He watches Dr Who, I do not. The editing is atrocious, big turn off. But I agree with the displaced time thing for this next bit of weird.

The 28th of March, started out pretty normal. The only abnormal thing about it was that this day's schedule usually happens on a Thursday, whereas this time it was Tuesday. I usually have a free day on Thursdays and spend them working away on music. So this week that happened Tuesday instead.

I got up at five to midday, not that unusual but a bit later than I would've liked. Twenty minutes later I was in the studio, home studio, working away. A couple minutes after I started I heard some footsteps outside the door. (I was the only one in the house) This room's door was open a bit and the footsteps seemed to stop at the door. This is a regular occurrence at our place. Our rule is if it's just the floor alone it could be the house settling. But if we hear a step or the carpet scuffing, it's probably a ghostie. This was one of those, scuffing on the hall runner, meaning carpet, we don't have a ghost that runs down the hall! Since this kind of thing is pretty common it's likely it had nothing to do with what happened next. However, it's possible it does because the way the footsteps stopped at the door suggested the attention was on me this time. Usually footsteps are heard doing something unrelated to whatever is happening. Whatever it was, I wasn't bothered.

After a while I took a break, went into the kitchen. The kitchen clock said 1:20.

Back to the grind after around 20 mins, so 1:40. Had another break at 3:10-ish. Looked at the kitchen clock, clock said 2:00. Now, I'd just read the same clock a few minutes ago and swear it had said 3:10 there abouts. So I go check the clock in the lounge, it also says 2:00. I figured I mustn't be paying attention and that was that.

Back to it, at apparently just after 2:00, according to clock in studio. Another break at 4:30. As I wait for the kettle to boil I look at the kitchen clock, it says 3:05. Go check lounge, studio and, this time, the bedroom too, all clocks say the same, 3:05.

Back to business at about 3:25. At this point I'm thinking 'right, I won't question this cause I'm getting lots done.' Take another break at 4:40, according to studio clock. Kitchen clock says 4:40 too. As I'm returning to studio I check kitchen clock again and it says 4:00. So I go check the lounge and studio clocks which say the same. Apart from the clock oddness the mood in the house felt very normal.

I decide to do a bit more until (apparently) 4:40 abouts. At 4:40-ish I go back into the kitchen and this time switch the radio on, it's in the kitchen, and wait for a time update. The radio guy says something or rather was coming up after the five o'clock update. So I sit through the traffic reports and what have you and at five o'clock, according to our house clocks, the hourly news update comes on and the news reader confirms it was indeed five o'clock.

I go have a shower at 5pm, shut up I'm an artist. All time seemed to return to coherent normalcy after 5 o'clock. At about 5:20 I made notes of all the time weirdness.

Again at about 3:30am I made more notes on everything I had done during the day. It's normal for me to slog it out for over 12 hours, I'm used to it. I made notes on all I'd done for the purpose of piecing together the changing clocks. I wouldn't normally take notes like this. Taking into account the time it took to do everything I got a crap load more done than I usually would earlier that day in a five hour (midday to 5 o'clock) session.

But the question remains: What the heck? Did it happen in the surrounding area? Or was it confined to here? So many questions and so few answers. Feel free to give your opinions and suggestions or moan about my disdain for Dr Who's crappy editing.

Either way, thanks for reading.