C.L. Raven's Blog, page 20

Ghost Train

Last night we went ghost hunting at Rothley’s train station. We booked tickets with UK Ghost Nights. Sometimes even we question why we do crazy things like book tickets for a ghost hunt that’s 3 hours away, ends at 3 am then insist on driving back. We like to think it’s because we’re young and foolish but our birth certificates say otherwise. We were joined again by Neen, who’s rapidly becoming the fourth member of C.A.T.S Calamityville Horror, and Hayley. We left Cardiff at 4 p.m. and reached Rothley by 7 p.m. So we hung out in the apparently haunted pub, The Woodman’s Stroke, before heading to The Royal Oak then made our way to the train station. All the tours say ‘don’t consume alcohol before a tour’. 3 drinks later, we were ready. We dressed in Victorian-esque clothes to fit in with the Victorian ghosts spotted at the station but our lack of parasols led us to taking our skull print umbrellas. The station’s been renovated to how it would have looked in 1912, complete with gas lamps and suitcases. There are plenty of rumours about people being killed on the tracks and a child breaking his neck from falling down the embankment. So far, we’ve been unable to confirm these and are waiting on the Office of Railway Regulation to help us.

After we went through the introduction, we were split in to two groups. Just case our team got separated, we came prepared with extra cameras – a 15 yr old JVC and Ryan’s dad Sony Handycam. For the first time ever, we had night vision. We were so excited. Until we discovered the batteries were very old and one wasn’t charged. Oh and the tape ran out. But the good news is, we look absolutely terrifying in night vision. Horror film, serial killer terrifying, so this will add the scare factor Calamityville Horror lacks. We also have a seriously cool Gothic utility belt that held batteries, DVR, memory cards & the K2. Yes, CVH is going pro. Our group was led by a medium. Fans of the show know exactly what we think of these mediums. But sadly, this one didn’t lead to us doing any Derek Acorah impressions. That’s a first for us. We were taken into the staff room where the cupboard is supposedly haunted by a the ghost of an apparent rapist and murderer, William. We stood in the cupboard and mocked him. After that the medium claimed William started stalking us. Our K2 meter disagreed. We’ve never known the K2 to be as quiet as it was in Rothley. Perhaps it had laryngitis.

We were taken back into the waiting room and each given a crystal and told to ask it to show us ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Except our crystals must have had flat batteries. Everyone else’s in the room was responding. Ours dangled like dead men from the gallows with not so much as a post mortem twitch. The organisers kept passing us different crystals, even ones that had been very active. Nothing. Then they handed out dowsing rods. Again, everyone else’s rods responded. Ours refused. They even gave Lynx rods with black handles, enabling the rods to move freely. Not a flicker. They were really confused by this. Guess this doesn’t happen often. When people asked their rods to point to ‘no’, for the negative reaction, 3 sets of rods swivelled and pointed to Cat – Neen’s, Ryan’s and the medium in training, Sarah. We’ve come to a number of conclusions. 1-we’re dead inside. 2-we have extremely poor circulation, so the pulses in our hands are weak, so if rods and crystals react to pulse, this would explain the lack of movement. 3-whereas some people are sensitive and attract spirits, we must be the opposite and repel them. Can we call ourselves insensitives?

After this, we were split in to 3 groups. We were taken to the abandoned carriages on the track. It was beautifully creepy on that part. We had our DVRs running and on playing them back, you can hear Cat and Ryan discussing his battery dying, then a male voice whispers ‘trains’. We were right by the trains. We’ll have to check the footage to see if anyone else is around them. It definitely wasn’t Ryan. We were then taken back into the staff room and Cat and Ryan stood in what Neen termed ‘the naughty cupboard’ to again antagonise William. Lynx, Neen and Hayley joined the organisers in a ouija board session. We grew up with horror films. We grew up with the notion you never, ever, touch ouija boards. We not only touched them, we participated. And to be honest, we’ve experienced scarier fashion trends. We do not trust other people when it comes to ouija boards or planchettes. We especially don’t trust them if someone from the organising group or one of their helpers is part of it. It is so easy to move the object when your fingers are on it. The planchette moved a lot, much to our mistrust. We were then left alone to do our own investigations, so Cat and Ryan joined the ouija board. We all put the back of our fingertips on the planchette. It’s impossible for anyone to move it like this, without spiritual help. Surprise surprise, it didn’t move. Didn’t even judder. We rest our case. Ouija boards are a fun gimmick but that’s about it. Bit like a Happy Meal toy.

We left the staff room and did some EVP bursts in the parcel room. Nothing. We then walked along the platform. We walked on ahead and at the same time, we both heard tuneful whistling. Nobody else was with us. Cat thought it was Neen, but Neen hasn’t been able to whistle since getting her lip pierced. We then decided to head down to the tracks. We were told that no group was allowed to venture down to the tracks without a member of staff. Calamityville Horror doesn’t follow rules! CVH doesn’t need adult supervision! No wait, we do. We headed down to the tracks beneath the tunnel. Us and Ryan heard whistling. The bridge is actually a road so it’s possible there was a dog walker out. Yes it was 2 a.m., but some people are crazy.

We then joined another group in the tea room, where they had been doing a ouija board for a while. We patiently waited our turn. Their turn lasted until it was almost time to leave. Thanks for sharing your toys. They’d been getting a lot of movement with the glass and seemed to know everyone who was communicating with them. We finally got our turn – put the backs of our fingertips on the glass and…nothing happened. Of course nothing happened – we don’t fake things. We even asked a question only we knew the answer to – what did our nan used to threaten us with? The ouija board had no reply.

*whispers* she regularly threatened to sell us to the gypsies.

The train station was an amazing location and it was a first for us. It was creepy, atmospheric and the perfect setting for ghost stories. As for the ghosts…maybe they hitched a ride on the last train. For some reason, we seem to scare ghosts away. Maybe it was the utility belt.

A List

We always look forward to Writing Magazine slapping onto our hall floor once a month but today it was even more exciting. A headline on the front read ‘Self-Publishing Award Winners’. Our spirits deflated like punctured lungs. In December we’d submitted Soul Asylum and Disenchanted to the David St John Thomas Self-Publishing Awards, which Writing Magazine are part of.  We’d heard nothing back so when we saw this headline we knew instantly that we hadn’t won. But we opened up the page anyway, if just to shake our tiny pixie fists in fury at the winners and clutch the magazine while our eyes twitch in a way favoured by maniacs.

And there was Soul Asylum amongst the Fiction Shortlist. We were so shocked that we completely forgot about the fist shaking and eye twitching. Even more surprising was that there were only 5 books in that shortlist. This award attracts hundreds of entries, possibly even thousands and Soul Asylum was in the top 5. We couldn’t believe it. We’re still in shock. And this is on the back of its successful free run. Well, we count it as successful. In the 5 days it was free to celebrate World Goth Day, we had 1214 downloads. The most surprising thing was someone downloaded it in Japan! We never thought it would appeal to Japan. We’ve seen their game shows. We’d worked hard to promote it and while we heard that less than 1000 in the first day meant it wasn’t successful, to us, 1214 was a massive achievement. And sales have increased following it. In March and April we sold a total of 10 books. May was doing better with 11 but Soul Asylum hadn’t sold ANY in May. Then we made it free. And suddenly after the price has gone back up, people are buying it. Granted it’s only 9 copies sold but to us, that’s huge. We’ll never make enough to keep our Red Bull supplies stocked but this is great for us and Red Bull is on offer at the moment.

It seems busting zumba moves inside the cursed witches’ circle in Edinburgh didn’t bring us bad luck after all. In fact, we haven’t been this lucky for years. Might need to find some other curses to shake our booties at…

Ghost Hunting

We’re thrilled to welcome L K Jay back to Ravens Retreat. Well, we say welcome back, we never actually let her out the last time But this time, she’s bearing gifts! Her sequel to The brilliant Ghost Hunters Club, The Ghost Hunters Return is FREE on Amazon this weekend. So if you’ve ever wanted to spend the weekend ghost hunting with three fun, feisty ladies, this is the book for you. And it’s FREE! We’ve had the privilege of visiting a couple of places that are featured in the book, with L K, so now you get to enjoy them too. Here’s L K to tell you more about it.

The Ghost Hunters Return

Have you seen the new Star Trek film?  How about Iron Man 3?  What have they got in common with my novel The Ghost Hunters Return?  They’re all sequels only mine’s better.  Ok, so my Ghost Hunters Club stories don’t have Benedict Cumberbatch in them, or Robert Downy Jr but for this weekend, it is free.  And it’ll last longer than even The Hobbit, and that’s saying something.

Anyway, after the first novel in the sequence, The Ghost Hunters’ Club, I left my heroines all with something they needed but not necessarily wanted.  A new job, a new man and lots of money, each had something but it had a twist.  This time, in The Ghost Hunters Return, two months have passed and they are planning on going ghost hunting again.  Only this time, instead of the elusive spook, there are too many!

I had real fun writing this novel.  It was my first sequel and as soon as I started, it was like meeting old friends again.  I found having conversations with them in my head much more natural, I knew how they’d react and what they wanted and I knew where they were going.  The comedy, and the drama, came much more naturally, and so did the villains.  I had real fun with those!

Then there was the ghost hunting and I couldn’t have done that without my ghost hunting heroes, C L Raven.  We visited Nottingham and Peterborough, and I’ve been to all of the venues mentioned in the novel, including Paris.  Peterborough, possibly one of the most exciting cities in the UK, alongside Milton Keynes and Grantham (I am being ironic, for those reading this who are not from the UK) has a surprising amount of ghosts.  The museum is riddled with them, it’s been on Most Haunted, so it must be true!  The cathedral is stunning, and we have some EMF activity there – the closest we’ve been so far to ectoplasm.

The thing is, can I write another Ghost Hunters and make it a trilogy.  I don’t know, when you read it you’ll see why but I can’t help but think that we haven’t seen the last of the ladies.  I planned The Ghost Hunters Return while in a dull meeting, who knows where the ideas will flood next!  Perhaps a particularly boring bus journey, or stuck in traffic, those ladies will come back – I just hope I have a pad and paper (and I’m not driving on a motorway!) when they do.

So, for this weekend, you can download The Ghost Hunters Return for free.  I hope you’ve downloaded Soul Asylum as well – it’s a cracking read and scary to boot.  And then you can read mine and lighten the mood with a golly good giggle!

click on the picture to download your free copy

World Goth Day

In case you don’t know, today is World Goth Day! */* and time to appreciate all things dark and Gothic. What could be more Gothic than a haunted asylum? Soul Asylum has plenty of the Gothic elements – a spooky location, madness, ghosts, despair, etc, so to celebrate, Soul Asylum is FREE on Amazon until Friday. But in order to make it free on Amazon, we had to pull it off the other retailers. We weren’t happy about this, as it means people who don’t have Kindles would miss out. So we’ve decided that to keep things fair, anyone who doesn’t have a Kindle, let us know and we’ll email Soul Asylum to you in a different format.

BLURB -

The blood wanted to prick a conscience that couldn’t bleed.

Poe could keep his telltale heart.

I couldn’t hear it beating.

Ravens Retreat harbours a sinister secret. Inside its blackened heart lurk the ghosts of patients and staff who died when the asylum was burned down in 1904. Over a hundred years later, the West wing survives and now the patients want revenge.

Their eternal repose is disturbed by a malevolent poltergeist and the ghost tours led by the asylum’s resident, Phineas Soul, which attract the attention of journalist Mason Strider. His attempts to expose Phineas as a fraud have catastrophic consequences when it is Ravens Retreat’s dark heart that’s exposed as it awakens to claim the lives of those who dare to enter its brutal past.

Some things should never be disturbed.

If that hasn’t convinced you to download it, why not watch the trailer  Fireclaw Films made for us?

We have also created a newsletter where you’ll be the first to know of new releases and we’ll have some exclusive content in there. If you’d like sign up, click here. We promise we won’t spam you, or share your email with anyone else

If that’s not enough ghosts for you, L K Jay‘s fabulous novel, The Ghost Hunters Club will be free on Friday. We’d love to go ghost hunting with Anna, Karen and Linda, so download the book to find out why.

Little Nani

We’re thrilled to welcome Cinta Garcia de la Rosa to Ravens Retreat. *dusts off chairs and fetches lactose free treats* The Funny Adventures of Little Nani have been given a facelift and Little Nani is ready to meet some people, so come and say hello. There’s giveaway at the end and in keeping with Little Nani’s ostrich friends, Cinta tells us about the time she encountered some ostriches.

BLOG TOUR – LITTLE NANI REVISITED

Thank you for visiting this wonderful blog today so you can know a bit more about Little Nani, her stories, her world, and her author. OK, her author is not as interesting as Little Nani, but what can we do? They go hand in hand, so please bear with her.

Why are we here today? Because Little Nani is suffering a series of changes. “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani” was published for the first time last September 2012, both in print and in ebook form, on Amazon and Createspace. However, along the months, I started feeling less enthusiastic about my book, thinking that the cover was dull and boring, and also thinking that the stories could be improved, maybe going through some extra editing and proofing. So that’s what I did, and now I am much happier about the result and I trust that I will start getting many more sales. Why? Because I will make the books available not only on Amazon and Createspace, but also on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Feed-A-Read.

There will be also many different options to buy the books. Do you want to buy the whole set of stories? You can do it. Do you want to buy just some stories, the ones you think you would like? You can do it too, since I will publish the stories individually on Smashwords. So you see, different options to match different customers, different readers.

Once all this is settled and the books are republished on all those retailers, I will start to do the same process with the second book in the Little Nani series, which will be available next Fall.

Follow the whole blog tour since I will be announcing all the news in the different blogs!

 

 

BLURB

Little Nani is a little girl who likes helping people. However, when she helps people the results can be a bit unexpected. Why is that? Little Nani is a witch! Or at least she wants to be a witch. With her magic wand, she will try to cast different spells to help her friends, but she won’t be successful all the time.

Follow Little Nani in her funny adventures and meet her extraordinary friends. Funny ostriches, horses that love reading, super-fast turtles, grumpy zombies… Little Nani has lots of friends! You can also draw your own characters!

Little Nani is willing to become a good witch. Will she manage to do it? Who knows? Read the stories and discover what happens next!

 

AUTHOR BIO.

 

 

Cinta Garcia de la Rosa is a Spanish writer who has loved the written word since he discovered she was able to read books at age 5. Since then, she has become a bookworm and reads around 100 books every year. She also writes, every day, compulsively, even in the middle of the night. You cannot control when inspiration hits you, can you? She writes in English because she is convinced that in a previous life she was British, so writing in English feels more natural to her than writing in her native language. Yes, she is crazy like that. Cinta Garcia is the author of “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani”, a collection of short stories for children, and “A Foreigner in London”, a short story published on Smashwords. She is a member of Independent Authors International (iAi).

 

 

 

 

Ostriches? Ostriches!

 

I want to share with you a funny story that involves ostriches. And no, it’s not a story made up with me. This is a true story, one that happened to me many years ago.

When I was 15 I loved going for long walks in the country with my best friend, Mari, who was 20 at that time. We also met every weekend to go to a local pub and have fun, drinking soft drinks and playing board games. The owner of the pub asked us one day if we wanted to buy an ostrich egg. Since he was always joking, we thought it was one more of his jokes. He said, “Oh, you don’t believe me? Wait and see!” Then he disappeared behind the bar and, when he came back, he was holding a massive egg in his hands. We were very surprised, but we still thought that it was a fake egg.

By that time, everybody in the pub was around us, looking intrigued at the egg. Since lots of people were skeptic about the authenticity of the egg, he took a bucket and broke the egg. It was a real ostrich egg! So people started being more interested in those ostrich eggs and asked him where he got them. He said he had an ostriches’ farm, but nobody believed him. We laughed a lot about that and then we left  the pub and went back home.

Some days later, Mari and I decided to go for a long walk in the country. We started walking and after 30 minutes we reached an area where some people have kind of farms: they have pigs, goats, sheep, cows, chickens,… We were walking and hearing all kind of animal sounds, until we heard something that we didn’t recognise. The sound was coming from a kind of garage behind a fence. We got curious and got closer to the fence, but we couldn’t see anything. While we were absent-mindedly trying to see what was inside the garage, we heard that same noise right next to us and we jumped of surprise!

Then we saw what had scared us… It was an ostrich! And because of the noise, the rest of them came out of the garage. It was true! The owner of the pub had an ostriches’ farm! We laughed a lot and we never, ever, doubted any single thing that the owner of that pub may tell us, no matter how strange it would sound.

Thanks, Cat and Lynx, for hosting me today!

 

GIVEAWAY!

Don’t forget to leave a comment, so you can enter the giveaway for the opportunity to win a signed copy of “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani”. If you leave comments in several blogs during the tour, you will get an entry for each comment. So don’t hesitate to comment!

 

LINKS TO THE BOOKS.

Createspace 

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Smashwords

 

MEDIA LINKS:

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Amazon Author

Smashwords Author

Website: http://www.cintagarciadelarosa.com/

Blogs: http://cintascorner.wordpress.com/ // http://icantstopreadingblog.com/ //

http://authorsyouwanttoread.wordpress.com/

Pinterest

Tumblr

About.me: http://about.me/cintagarcia

Authorsdb

Askdavid.com

 

The Evening News

This is basically a news report and we feel each announcement should come with gong, but we don’t have one, so we’ll have to write it in. It might lessen the impact, but it’s the best we’ve got.

GONG! We are now on Authorgraph! Thanks to the fabulous author Margaret James, we signed our books up, so if you have a ebook version of our books, you can now request an autograph here. We’ll handwrite them using a graphics tablet so they’ll look like the ones in our printed books. Well, not quite the same. The last time we used the tablet it looked like we’d handed the pen to one of our cats. But we’ll practise until it looks like our handwriting and we’ll personalise each one, just like we do with the printed books.

GONG! In other news, we’ve made a start on a new collection of short stories based on nursery rhymes. The stories behind nursery rhymes are sometimes pretty creepy, but we won’t be using their stories, we’ll be inventing our own. We’ve already written the Mary, Mary story (untitled at the moment) and we’ve drafted Lizzie Rose to do the cover for us, as it’s in the same vein as Disenchanted. Check out her work here. We were inspired when Matty Baker from the fantastic band She Loves Seven sent us a link to horror figurines based on fairytales and nursery rhymes, so thanks Matty! We owe you.

GONG! Our final story of the night is to remind you that our debut novel Soul Asylum will be FREE one week from today. Yes, from May 20th – 24th, it will be free on Amazon to celebrate World Goth Day, which is on May 22nd. We’d like to say we’ve got a whole load of fun events and promos planned, but that would be a lie. We’re writing a Trauma Llama post for Anya Breton, but that’s about it.

Back to you in the studio

No Surrender

Last Sunday, after an amazing week in Edinburgh, we crashed. We don’t mean a car crash but a crash that will be recognised by everyone who’s ever suffered from a mental illness. One moment you’re euphoric, happier than you’ve ever been, the next you’re locking yourself away, ranting, screaming and sobbing until your eyes swell up and you resemble a hideous creature only found in the depths of Lovecraft’s imagination.

The day before leaving for Edinburgh we’d received 2 rejections. One was for a ghost story set in an asylum and one was our take on The Slender Man. The Slender Man one hurt more because the editor had emailed us asking if we’d be interested in writing a story for the anthology, so for it to then be rejected…it wasn’t just a kick in the teeth, it was being strapped to a rack and having each nerve shredded with a cheese grater. But then we went to Edinburgh and forgot about it. Until we came home and checked sales figures. 1 book in 4 days. And that’s good for us. Amazon don’t like you disclosing sales figures but the likelihood of them reading this blog post are slim, so screw it. They didn’t read the one where we likened them to a protection racket, so we think we’re safe. We sold 5 books in March. April wasn’t much better. We made £160 in our first year of Indie writing and that gets split between us. We probably spend more than that on Red Bull alone. Everything we submit gets rejected. We can go for weeks without selling a single book and we have 4 out there. We’re failing. And we don’t like failing. Especially when we’re failing at the only thing we’ve ever truly loved, the only thing we’ve ever wanted to do. The only thing that dragged us through the dark times and gave us a reason for living when we couldn’t face it any more.

These crashes we call The Darkshines. They’re pretty normal for us and 99% of the time we hide them. No one but us knows when they’ve pounced. After a while you get good at putting on a mask. On Sunday we got sick of fighting them and unleashed that ugliness that dwells inside us. *Note to selves – NEVER let anyone see that inner ugliness. Just because you have to live with it, doesn’t mean others should.* Basically, we spent all of Sunday in tears and seriously considered the possibility of quitting. We know what some people are thinking ‘why don’t you then?’ At least 90% of writing is rejection. Most of time we can deal with it. We shrug, remove the smiley face from the short story list and look for somewhere else to submit. But quitting writing would be like quitting breathing.

So a couple of days later, after the demons were captured and shackled back in the dungeons of our minds, we got productive. Last time this happened, we signed up for library readings. (Considering only friends and family came to the Cathays one, that was a failure. We’ll probably cancel the Roath one.) We set up a website for formatting ebook and print books – Pink Cow Formatting. We can’t make money from writing but we might from formatting; we enlisted our books on Indie Book Bargains and we enrolled Soul Asylum into KDP Select.

We’ve never enrolled our books into KDP Select – Gunning Down Romance and Bad Romance were too cheap. People aren’t going to borrow books that only cost 77p. Mind you, they don’t buy them either. Plus we don’t like the way Amazon forces you to be exclusive to them for three months. So even thinking about it felt like we were selling our souls. But the main incentive was being able to make it free on Amazon. When we’ve done free promos before, Smashwords let us make it free but Amazon won’t. People tell tales of having thousands of downloads when their book was free, propelling them up the Amazon rankings to the coveted #1 slot, regardless of how good their book is. The point is, when it’s up there, people see it. Our books are currently languishing so far down they’re on the Pity Graph. But Amazon wouldn’t play ball with our promo. GDR had 25 downloads in a week of being on Smashwords. That’s terrible. Soul Asylum had 14 on the one day it was free. That’s a little better.

May 22nd is World Goth Day and we thought we could make Soul Asylum free to celebrate. What could be better than spending World Goth Day with a gothic novel in a haunted asylum? But for this to truly work, it had to be free on Amazon. And there’s only one way that will happen.

KDP Select.

So from May 20th-24th, Soul Asylum will be FREE. Hell, we can’t sell it, we might as well give it away. Though people don’t usually want our free books either…If you want signed print copies, we still have loads left. Yes we ship worldwide. They make great door stops, coasters, draught excluders and can also be used to brain burglars. Failing that, they’ll keep your fire going in winter.

So come May 20th, we’ll be opening the doors to Ravens Retreat and releasing the ghosts of the patients and staff still trapped inside. If you listen carefully, you might just hear them scream…

Three Witches

You know the day won’t go well when you can’t find Sainsbury’s, cross the road to ask someone only to find you were standing right outside it at the crossing. We made a shame-faced retreat, remarking how much like an office block it looked. We went through the revolving doors, marvelling how posh the marble foyer was. Sainsbury’s in Cardiff just have security bleepers and teenagers hanging around outside. Turned out, this wasn’t Sainsbury’s. This was an office block. Whoops. Sainsbury’s was next door. Then Cat got stuck in the revolving door on our way out. Being humiliated by a supermarket wasn’t exactly the highlight of the tour. We returned to Travelodge to fetch Ryan and head to the castle. Ryan forgot his coat & had to return for it. We mocked him and continued on our way. Only for Lynx to discover she’d forgotten her camcorder when we weren’t far from the castle so we had to go back for it. By now the group had splintered – Ryan was on the Royal Mile in Games Workshop, Neen was browsing the shops on Princes Street and we were standing outside a shoe shop getting strange looks from the shop girl inside. So we stood staring in through the window just to make the atmosphere inside mildly uncomfortable.

We finally made it to Edinburgh castle and we managed to get Ryan and Neen in for free on our Cadw cards, saving them £16 each The castle was cool, though we were disappointed it wasn’t like a castle in the traditional sense. It’s made up of old buildings, which are mostly war museums. We pretended to fire the cannons at the peasants below. They screamed a little but their pain didn’t last long. We went to see the Crown Jewels after spending a while sitting outside. We walked 9 and a half miles yesterday and about 4 on Tuesday so our feet, ankles and shins were in agony. Each step was torture.  Over the security guard’s radio, we heard the word ‘camcorder’ and immediately had visions of someone being tackled after using their camcorder in a prohibited zone. After a lunch break, we noticed we were minus our camcorder. Cat had been in charge of it for once. She’d left it on the bench outside the Crown Jewels. Luckily someone handed it in. Yes, the camcorder announcement on the radio wasn’t heralding the take down and imprisonment of a brazen tourist, but the idiocy of us forgetting it. The security guard commented on how long it took us to notice it was missing. (An hour we believe). Yes we’re numptys. We then nearly left our tablet by a guard post but Neen spotted it. The whole time she’s been looking after the tablet it was safe. We take it back and leave it behind. After that we relinquished full guardianship duties of the tablet to Neen. It wasn’t left behind again.

We were supposed to do the Mary King’s Close tour at 9 but Neen and us wanted to do the other vaults tour so we could dance in the witches cursed stone circle. Neen phoned and asked if we could do an earlier tour. They said yes so at 5 we headed over. Have to say we weren’t that impressed. The guides on the City of the Dead tours were amazing but this guy was terrible. He was boring, quite rude to people and putting on a terrible Scottish accent for only a few words. Seriously, either do it properly or don’t bother. He even told an old guy off for sitting on a trough. They don’t let you take photos or film purely so they can make money off the souvenir photos which are taken by an IR camera and frankly not great. The street itself was pretty cool but they really need to sort out their guides. And they have speaking portraits which were clever but totally irrelevant to the tour. They had nothing to do with the close, except one and the guide was so wooden at interacting with the portraits it was embarrassing. The Dungeons staff were brilliant at interacting with the props. This guy was pompous, telling everyone how to walk down spiral stairs. There were four steps. We were hardly in danger of killing ourselves. And we’re seasoned in the spiral staircases in castles. You want a dangerous staircase, try Conwy Castle. He was more concerned with telling us how to walk over the flag stone floor than he was at being entertaining. But we’re glad we did the tour, because Mary King’s Close has been a place we’ve wanted to visit for ages and we can now say we’ve been there.

We then headed to Rapido chip shop which served vegan chips. We’d been looking forwards to going there since we found out about it. The chips were delicious, fat, greasy and huge portions.  They tasted like chips you get at the seaside. We returned to Travelodge for a couple of hours before the 10 o’ clock vaults tour. Ryan didn’t want to do another vaults tour and stayed in Travelodge, so if we antagonise the witches and ghosts on the tour, we’re kinda screwed.

We left early for our tour because our legs are so sore, normal walking pace is painful. Good job we did because Cat forgot her rucksack and had to run back for it. When we reached the meeting place, almost everyone was smoking. Ych a fie. We hate the smell of smoke so stood upwind from them as much as possible. If you want to kill yourselves, fine, but don’t take the rest of us with you. For once, the men outnumbered the women on the tour. Usually you get couples or if there is a small group, it’s always women. One large group were a group of soldiers. They were all big guys. Let’s see how brave they are in the vaults. If the amount they were smoking was any indicator, they were clearly nervous.

The Wiccan’s circle

This tour was with Auld Reekie and called the Terror Tour. Our guide, Rachel was lovely and had a really cool coat. Our first stop on the tour was the site of the old Tolbooth jail, which was right next to St. Giles cathedral and is marked out by brass bricks in the road. On the pavement is a stone heart. We’ve walked over it plenty of times on our travels, not knowing what it was. Apparently it’s the site of the death cell. It’s considered good luck to spit on it, bad luck to stand on it. She asked if anyone wanted to stand on it to tempt fate for the tour. Naturally, Neen and us leapt on it and danced. Strangely nobody joined us. If they’re not willing to stand on a stone heart, there’s no way in hell they’ll come into the stone circle with us. Rachel then took us to a car park for the Parliament buildings, which used to be the graveyard for the cathedral. One resident, John Knox stated in his will he was never to be moved from his resting place, so he’s the only occupant still there. Under car park space 23 which has a plaque. And last night it had a van on it.

Then it was in to the vaults. These vaults aren’t underground, but are actually in the South Bridge. The first room was the torture room. It was boiling in there. Once we were in the vaults, the first room we spotted was the room belonging to the coven of wiccans. They used to hire a vault further up, but discovered a negative presence was there. As we gathered around the stone circle, Rachel told us not to stand inside. Thinking she was banning us, we were planning to jump in anyway. She told us that one night, the coven leader stayed overnight by himself in order to cleanse the vault. He heard a noise further down the vaults and went to investigate. On returning, he saw the iron gate over the vault was closed. There’s no wind in the vaults. He shouted “show yourself” and heard a crack. The mirror in the corner had a large fracture running through it. He again shouted “show yourself!”

But has never said what happened next.

He asked the boss of Auld Reekie tours not to allow anyone to go into the vaults. But naturally, being an operator of ghost tours, he couldn’t lock up the scariest vault in the bridge. So the wiccans built a stone circle to trap the negative entity inside. Apparently, anyone who goes into the circle is attacked or suffers bad luck. There’s a story that one man had a heart attack while in there. Before Rachel had finished saying “if you want to step inside” we were in the circle like rats on a corpse. We broke out our zumba moves while the rest of the group stared at us. It was either in awe, terror or ‘you pin them down, I’ll fetch the men white coats’. It’s hard to tell in the gloom.

us in the stone circle

Nobody else joined us. We got Rachel to take a photo of us then a couple of the soldiers, clearly feeling emasculated, reluctantly stepped inside the circle. But they didn’t stay for long. As we left, one of them said to us “if anything happens to us now, we’re hunting you down.” We’re not scared! One of the soldiers then spent the rest of the time tapping us in the dark in an effort to frighten us. Nice try. We see ourselves first thing in the morning, we don’t scare easily.

The final vault was known as the haunted vault. She had the group separate so the men were on the left, the women on the right. Which meant we got to stand in a big puddle and our boots leak. The reason for this was that the entity in this vault is only felt by women. If women are on the right side, all they feel are soft caresses on their cheeks or their hair being brushed. If they’re on the left, the entity becomes aggressive and they get pushed, scratched, etc. We asked if we could switch sides. She was reluctant, but we ran to the left side and mingled with the men. For some reason, the soldiers moved away from us. None of the other women joined us.

On our way out, Rachel threatened to lock some of us in overnight. We were thrilled and begged her to lock us on. One of the soldiers said “I’d stay overnight, but I’m not staying with those three.” It’s not often that women who are 5’2” at their tallest, terrify a group of soldiers, who were 6’ plus. It was a definite high point of the evening and is now our joint favourite moment with Ryan’s cross dressing charge. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to film in these vaults so the two best moments of the holiday were not captured

However, it’s been four days since we tempted Fate with the heart and dancing in the cursed stone circle and we weren’t attacked, haven’t dropped dead and haven’t had any bad luck. But this is probably because we are naturally the unluckiest people we know so the entity clearly thought about it and went “you’re screwed enough.”

Dungeon Masters

Before the day could even begin we had to walk to Tesco to find some cold soya milk. On our other holidays we’ve had a cool box full of ice as our portable fridge but we couldn’t exactly take it on the plane, so cue us trekking to Tesco in the rain for a milk mission. It was about a mile from our Travelodge but walking’s cheaper than a bus. We bought bags of ice to put in the sink with our milk and Red Bull. Then regretted it as we had to lug the heavy bags for the mile home. We were going to go to the castle but after that hike and the rain, we decided to go to the dungeons instead. The sun did make an appearance, but by then we had our hearts set on the dungeon.

The Edinburgh Dungeons are amazing! We knew were in for a good time when the first thing you do is pose for a photo. The girl who took our photo (we didn’t get her name) was lovely. Sadly we weren’t allowed to film or take photos, which was a shame because we want to relive it. We were first taken into a room where a judge awaited us. There was a couple on our tour but they weren’t really entering into the spirit of the dungeons. To put it another way, they looked like they’d accidentally taken the wrong turn out of Topshop and were too embarrassed to leave. The girl was the first put on trial, for witchcraft and just stood there, looking like she regretted the ticket price. Had we been called to take the stand we would’ve been proclaiming our innocence and even attempted an escape and body tackle while laying a curse upon people’s houses. Ryan was called to stand so us and Neen started booing him and calling for the death penalty, loudly declaring his guilt. He was put on trial for cross dressing – namely sneaking into Lady Chatterly’s back garden, putting on her pink frilly underwear and dancing around singing “I’m Shirley and I’m a big girly,” whilst slapping his backside. We haven’t laughed that hard in ages. We were in serious danger of rupturing vital organs. We were now really gutted we couldn’t film. This was comedy gold. Ryan was then known as Shirley for the rest of the holiday. It’s nice he gets a new nickname for each holiday, it’s like a souvenir that never gets lost.

The next stage was our punishment – the torture chamber – where a handsome torturer awaited us. Once again Ryan was his victim. There’s something about him that the guides pick up on because every tour we do, he gets picked on. Maybe it’s the Lynx Effect of his deodorant. The torturer demonstrated tongue removal , the chappy chopper (no prizes for guessing what that was used for) then made Ryan bend over the chair for the butcher’s hook. Never seen him look so nervous Now he was the one looking like he regretted the ticket price as he awkwardly put his hands on the arm of the chair. That was as far as he got to bending over, the spoilsport. Neen and us were the only people who knew exactly what each piece of torture equipment was used for. Anyone would think that had been our favourite part in history lessons. We were put on a boat and sent through the pitch black caves of Galloway. There, we were greeted by the infamous Sawney Bean – the cannibal. He took a liking to the girl on the tour, but she seemed a little freaked out. We moved on to Dr Knox’s anatomy class where his assistant performed an autopsy. We would’ve happily helped him – we’ve seen autopsy programmes, we know what to do.  We got sprayed with water from the fake bladder before being led to a graveyard. We need a graveyard themed room in Casa Raven. We sat on headstone thrones and listened to Burke and Hare talking. It would’ve been nice to have actors portraying them, but being prodded through the thrones to see if we were suitable specimens was pretty cool. We should’ve slouched lower so they could have massaged our aching shoulders.

The next part was a replica of Mary King’s Close, where a cloaked man scared the crap out of the couple we were with. The lights would occasionally go out then when they switched back on, he’d stand in front of them. Never heard a guy shriek like that We thought it was the girl but no, that high pitched squeal of terror contained a Y Chromosome. We were sentenced to hang and given the option of backing out of the drop ride. Neen and us hate heights and hate that type of ride but we wanted the full experience so went on. As the ride went higher and higher we started to regret it. We barely paid attention to the judge delivering the death sentence, we were so nervous. After being told “you will hang from the neck until you are dead,” they pulled the hangman’s lever and we dropped. Weirdly we enjoyed it and there’s an amazing photo of Neen screaming. We got trapped in the hall of mirrors until the guide rescued us. There was one spooky moment when we approached each other, thinking we were nearing a mirror until we both realised we were wearing different clothes. To be fair, it was dark. After we bought our souvenir photos, we took the lift to the gift shop. We would’ve bought the whole place if we weren’t so broke. We loved it so much, we could have happily spent the day doing tour after tour. There needs to be a Cardiff Dungeons. We’d go and work there. Sadly though, Cardiff doesn’t have the same dark and bloody history as Edinburgh. To our knowledge, we’ve never even had a serial killer.

We returned to Greyfriars Kirkyard so we could see it in the day. It’s beautiful. It has stunning monuments that are carved with skulls, skeletons – need we say more? Whilst we were there, an American couple asked if they could take our photo. This is happening with increasing regularity and sadly, it’s not because they know who we are. We all gathered together for the shot then got talking to them. Turned out, he works for the bass player of Matchbox 20, who had just finished a gig in Glasgow. Everyone had flown home, but they decided to head for Edinburgh instead. After the graveyard, we made our way to Black Lion game shop so Ryan could buy some dice. We spent ages in there while he deliberated, so just chatted to the owner.

But we had another place planned – Camera Obscura. It’s filled with optical illusions and the camera obscura, which is a large mirror on the roof of the building, which reflects the city onto a table, allowing us to see the city from above. There was a cool mirror maze which was easier to navigate than the one in the dungeons. There was also a vortex tunnel, which had a metal bridge through a tunnel of lights which spins. It’s very disorienting and we all felt sick. No idea what possessed us to go through a second time.

We made a quick stop at our Travelodge then headed out for our vault tour. We called in to our closest pub – Jekyll and Hyde. Another awesome pub. It is filled with dark wood, chandeliers, displays of old glass bottles, skulls and an old type writer and an area made to look like a library. Turns out, this was where the toilets were. They were concealed in the library walls. It’s the first time we’ve ever wanted to sit by the toilets. To get to the back section of the pub, you went through a tunnel with horror monsters painted on it. We need pubs like this in Cardiff. Perhaps one day someone will open a Soul Asylum pub in our honour, with cocktails with name like ECT, Insanity or The Lobotomy. The walls could be padded, the tables could be stretchers, the beer garden could be the graveyard, with headstone seats…we haven’t really thought about it.

After a quick drink, we made our way to the vaults. Our guide, Samantha was brilliant. The City of the Dead tour takes you to the Niddry Street vaults known as Damnation Alley. Each tour company has their own section of vaults. On this tour, there are only 3 vaults to go in, but one of them, Vault 19 has the legendary South Bridge entity, who attacks people. We were hoping tonight would be the night he made an appearance. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. We hear all these stories of people being attacked on tours and not once has it ever happened on a tour we’ve been on. We got talking to an Australian tourist, who like us, was looking for scary things to do. He seemed nice and stuck with us for the tour. Either because we were the ones with the big light, or so he’d be able to throw us in the path of the entity. Or he figured the entity would be more scared of us and would therefore, attack the less threatening members of the group.

When we were in the vault, our guide had everyone switch off their torches so we were in complete darkness. Having been locked in the punishment cell in Ruthin Gaol, we’re used to being in a room so dark it makes your eyes hurt. But the girls in front of us were clearly scared. They kept switching their torches on. Samantha told us a story about a little girl, Claire, who was on a tour with her mum. The guide’s torch had died and Claire’s mum went to grab her hand, but Claire wasn’t there. After the guide’s torch switched on, Claire was stood in the corner, facing the wall, Blair Witch style. When her mum asked why had she gone, she replied “someone took my hand.” The guide asked if she thought it was her mum. She answered “no, I knew it wasn’t my mum. My mum doesn’t have claws.”

A guy burst into the vaults, screaming. The girls in front of us freaked out and rushed backwards. We were at the back of the group so were almost trampled. How could they not see that coming? It’s a classic horror technique. Although the scare did relieve some of the tension, the story would have been creepier without it.

We were gutted this tour didn’t have the cursed stone circle, as we were going to dance in it. We’re booked on the Mary King’s Close tour tomorrow, so unless we can change the time, we’ll have to leave the stone circle for another holiday. We finished the night in the Jekyll and Hyde pub before returning to our Travelodge to see if the entity had scratched us. Sadly it hadn’t. But there were more tours  to come…

City of the Dead

at the airport!

Finally, after months of waiting and planning, the glorious day had arrived. The Edinburgh ghost hunting holiday. The day started well when Ryan got up and couldn’t find his suitcase. Then he went to buy an auxiliary cable and dropped his driving licence in Morrison’s before discovering he had a cable at home. Then he lost his Jaffa Cakes. We threatened to leave him in Edinburgh. The chances of him finding his way back would be slim. We picked Neen up and we were off. Until we realised we’d forgotten something important. The Red Bull. After an emergency dash to ASDA we were set. The trip to Bristol didn’t involve any wrong turns or random swearing outbursts, because Neen is an experienced traveller to Bristol airport and navigated well. You don’t need Sat Nav when you have Neen Nav. We found the car park easily and parked in the dirt field before boarding the old minibus to the airport. Except we both tried going to Arrivals. Our thinking was, ‘we’re arriving at the airport’. Apparently we needed departures. Note to selves – never travel without adult supervision. Oh wait, we’re 30…

When going through security, the guy took one look at us and Neen and laughed. All the jewellery had to come off, including chains on skirts and boots. Then Lynx and Neen were frisked. Ryan filmed it and was promptly told off and made to delete his video. He protested the lack of Photos Prohibited signs, as he stood in front of one. Unfortunately, the ban on photos forbade the glorious photo opportunity. The guy who had seen us through first, laughed at us putting all our jewellery back on. We then bought a Red Bull before buying a range of studded wristbands and a spiked studded tie. Mostly people hang out in duty free. As our flight was called, Lynx realised she’d dropped her boarding pass. A frantic scour discovered it by the ties. Disaster averted. As we headed out to the plane, Lynx filmed it and was asked to delete it. They were too distracted by her filming to notice Cat taking photos right in front of them Currently typing this on the plane and it is so exciting! We haven’t been on a plane for 17 years. Tonight we do the Greyfriars Kirkyard ghost tour. We can’t wait!

on the plane!

We took a bus to the city centre as we couldn’t afford a taxi. We sat backwards which wasn’t a wise move as Lynx gets travel sick and at any minute, we waited for the man opposite her to be treated to the inner workings of her digestive system. Thankfully, it didn’t happen. The bus dropped us on Princes Street, our Travelodge was on Queen Street, which was quite a walk when you’re laden down with suitcases, rucksacks, crutches and excitement. A woman must have noticed our confused, panicked expressions as she came over to see if we needed help then directed us to Queen Street. Surprisingly we found our Travelodge without tears. Probably because Neen has an incredible sense of direction. This might be the first holiday where we don’t get lost. We’ll have to find some other way to entertain ourselves. After settling into our Travelodge, we headed into town to look for somewhere to eat before the kirkyard tour. We passed a bar called Jekyll and Hyde then found a bar called Frankensteins. Or The World Famous Frankenstein to be exact. Torn between here and a vegan cafe, the lure of a horror themed evening swayed us. The place is amazing! There is Frankenstein-esque design and the cocktails have Frankenstein names such as Dr Frankenstein and The Bride. We ordered The Generator, which is a mix of vodka, cranberry juice, lime and red bull.  And the chips are vegan. We’re in for a great night.

We met up with the tour by St Giles Cathedral. We’d booked with City of the Dead Tours. Our tour guide Jerry was brilliant. Absolutely nuts but very entertaining, ducking and creeping past the other tour. Neen and us joined in. Ryan pretended he wasn’t with us. He does that a lot. Think we embarrass him or something…The kirkyard had stunning monuments but when we were further in, we looked at the sparse headstones and were thinking ‘this isn’t much of a graveyard. There’s no-one here’. Turned out, during the plague, they built those plague pits. We were in fact standing on half a million dead bodies. The top soil is made up of 2% human remains and every now and again when it rains, bits of bone seep to the surface. But we weren’t allowed to take any home as souvenirs. It’s considered grave robbing, which is still a hanging offence in Scotland and you will be placed under house arrest until hanging comes back into fashion. Like all past nightmares, it’s bound to happen soon. Look at the seventies hairstyles currently assaulting our visual senses.

We were really looking forwards to someone on the tour being attacked by the MacKenzie poltergeist, especially if it happened to one of the C.A.T.S. team. The one thing our show is missing is a violent poltergeist attack.  And Red Bull sponsorship. As the guide talked about the poltergeist, the group started getting more and more nervous. We were getting more and more excited. Then we were led into the Covenanters prison, where the Covenanters were forced to live naked outside for months, with little food and water. We were taken into a tomb and told the story of a tramp disturbing MacKenzie’s mausoleum and waking the poltergeist. Then a guy in a mask leapt in, shrieking. Most of the tour screamed in terror and shot backwards, further into the tomb. Neen and us didn’t even react. Neen had seen him move into position and we’re really hard to scare. Ryan jumped.

The tour was brilliant, but the jumping out wasn’t necessary. We were in a graveyard at night, that’s haunted by a violent poltergeist. There doesn’t need to be any tricks. We checked ourselves for scratches, bruises and bites when we got back but sadly we were all unharmed. Maybe next time…