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The ghosts of our old house are annoyed to see us back and/or the people running this simulation are running out of ideas. Ernie wanted me to light the wood burner first thing in the morning (it's often rather cool in our living room first thing) and I had previously loaded it with paper and kindling. But once lit it started spewing smoke into the room. Maybe we needed the chimney swept, or maybe I'd inadvertently blocked the flue with paper, but most likely it was a ghost. I was surprised that the smoke alarm didn't go off and wake the rest of the house, but I opened windows and got the smoke out. There wasn't loads of it.
Later I came back from the supermarket and a chimney sweep van was parked right next to my car. They were clearly cleaning a neighbour's chimney and maybe if I hung around I could see if he had time to do mine. But that's what the Universe wanted. I took the first olot of bags in and on my return saw him heading towards another house. I could have chased him down but let it go. It was weird that this happened just after I'd thought about it. But then again as autumn starts and people light their fires again they discover they need them swept. I wasn't playing into the hands of the beings in charge of this simulation. I took a photo of the back of his van so I could ring him at a time convenient to me and not the ghosts.
We had an earlyish night but I struggled to sleep. Espeically when at 3am the smoke alarm finally started beeping. But like it had done a few years ago. It wasn't the battery sound, it was the smoke sound. But it would beep a few beeps, then be quiet, then beep again. I think last time I vacuumed the smoke alarm to sort it out (or did it just stop on its own - I am sure I wrote at length about it, but can't be arsed to check). So I got a ladder and the hoover and had a go at that. Even though the beeps had gone on (and mainly off) for a few minutes, the kids slept through all this, which isn't the best sign.
My initial clean didn't do it, so I had one more go. And in a move that seemed just too pat and convenient, a tiny spider got sucked out the hole. You'd think it would have gone straight into the cleaner, but it just appeared out of the hole and then stood on the alarm. Had this whole thing been caused by it? Catie had googled the problem and insects were in the top four reasons for alarms going off - along with battery problems, dust and surprisingly smoke (even though that hadn't done anything earlier). Amazing that a tiny spider could set off a smoke alarm, but smoke didn't.
It felt like the ghosts were trying to cover themselves and provide a too obvious suspect. But the alarm didn't go off again. Though fearful of a secret fire somewhere I didn't sleep for another couple of hours. So well played arachnids, ghosts or simulators. Maybe you're all the same thing. This might be a simulation run by ghost spiders. Makes as much sense as anything else.
RHLSTP Book Club is back baby and what a start to the new series, with the extraordinary Lucy Worsley and her book about the extraordinary Agatha Christie
