Cats In The Coach House

I signed up to this site looking for some information on my Mums'behalf.

Two years ago my parents bought a converted 200 year old coach house in Somerset, England. Along with them was their yorkie and 17 year old Himalayan, who passed away last year. Shortly after their arrival they (including the pets) kept hearing loud thuds downstairs...let's say, hoof-like thuds. My dad went down to investigate on numerous occasions, but found nothing. Both my parents (and the pets) became quite used to the thuds after a while and often joke about it.

Since the passing of their cat, other things have started to happen. A couple of months back, my Mum was in bed about to fall asleep when she felt something jump up and lay gently beside her. A moment later another jumped up, and then another. Before she knew it, she felt she was sharing the bed with what she can only decribe as four or five cats. The dog, who was already asleep on the bed, started to change its breathing. Its a Yorkie who snores (all the time!), but at that moment my mum couldn't hear her, at all.

All that besides, she didn't feel afraid. Quite the opposite.

Since then, this has been happening on a nightly basis. She cannot see them, but can definately feel them. Especially the one who lays on her chest and breathes gently in her face (as her old cat used to). One night she went to bed early with a bout of sciatica (of which she suffers alot). The 'cats' arrived, snuggled-up to her and the next morning she felt a lot better.

Of course, she doesn't want to tell many people about this in fear of being branded as a loon, but I thought that whilst I was on your site, I'd drop this in.

My Opinion to all this?...Well, it can be looked at in one of two ways:

Non believer - My Mum has to lay off that West Country gooseberry wine!

Believer - They live in a converted coach house. What else would you expect from a place that spent many years with coaches & horses: mice. And cats (of whom our beloved Himalayan now seems to be the ringleader. He was always the boss when he was around!).

By the way, the hoof thuds have stopped since the 'cats' arrival.