Being Hounded.

After a long spell of mostly dry weather the car was looking a little dusty, so yesterday I washed it. Last night and this morning it rained, leaving the road wet and depositing puddles of grubby water everywhere. So now, after one fifteen mile round trip, it’s dirtier than it was before I washed it. Happens often.

Today I put on a freshly laundered pair of jeans, and within two hours I’d dropped fragments of dinner on them. I don’t drop dinner, except when I’ve just donned a clean pair of jeans. Happens nearly every time.

And last night I had my usual Beltane Eve fire, and I was a bit disappointed that there were no magical happenings as there were three years ago which I wrote about here. But then I had to go upstairs for something and the convector heater in my bedroom was doing all sorts of strange things. It appeared that the time switch, the thermostat and the power light had all gone wonky. ‘Oh no,’ I thought, ‘something else I’ll have to pay to have repaired.’ When I went to bed later, everything was working perfectly again.

I swear the little people or other elemental forces are sometimes moved to play tricks on me, and a Beltane Eve fire might just be the sort of thing that would encourage their propensity for mischief. And I’ve often heard it said that elemental forces are particularly adept at making their presence felt through the medium of electrical or electronic devices.

Or maybe it’s another Japanese ghost. (I still watch Japanese horror films in instalments most nights.) I’m waiting for the night when one of them will crawl out of my computer monitor and I will have to be at my level-headed best to thwart her.

‘Excuse me, madam. I do appreciate the attention you bestow upon me, but would you please remove that mass of black hair from my keyboard. I can’t see what I’m typing.’

Maybe she’ll go *pouf*. Or maybe she’ll scream and blast my ear drums. Or maybe I’ll simply be given cause to regret making light of the subject.