Spooky!

Now, I'm not psychic, and I'm not overly convinced by people who accept without question things like orbs, "noises", and things like that... I'm not saying I don't believe in ghosts, the afterlife, and strange phenomena - just that when someone tells me "I've got the gift", I tend to think "Aye, right...(!)"

But I can't explain what happened to me this afternoon... Now, maybe I'm totally wrong about this, so don't think "Ooo... that's amazing" until I can find out if there is a family connection here or not.

As I sometimes do on a Sunday afternoon, I was wandering around the graveyard of St Magnus Cathedral (this time testing out my new digital camera taking some photos), and I spotted a broken gravestone not far off the path I was walking down. I thought "It's such a shame to see broken stones like that... I wonder who that one belongs to?" and walked over to have a look at the name...

"Erected to the memory of Mary Tulloch", I said, reading it aloud to myself, "wife of John Ritchie..." - now, at this point, my jaw just about hit the ground... you see, my Dad's Dad was John Ritchie... and he was married before he married my Granny (I never knew either my paternal Grandfather or Grandmother, as both died before I was born)... but I carried on reading - "died 5th July, 1899, aged 39"...

(If you click on the photo, you'll get a bigger version of it that should be legible... It's not great quality, I'm afraid, because my camera battery had died by that point and I had to resort to the camera on my phone).

I kind of dismissed it at this point, thinking that my Grandad wouldn't have been old enough to marry at that time, because he only died in the 1950's... until I met my brother and told him about it. He said our Granddad was born in 1866... so, in 1899 he would have been 33... and could conceivably have married a woman 6 years older than him. And Granddad's first wife was from one of the North Isles of Orkney (Sanday, we think) - and Tulloch is quite a common name there, I think...

I wish I knew what Granddad's first wife's name was, but I don't know who to ask, because I think all the first family are dead now...

I was a little bit more spooked out because as I was looking at the gravestone in wonderment, I was sure I could hear a cat meowing somewhere close by, but I couldn't see one!

I'm still a little flipped out by this, because I really can't tell you why I was attracted to that particular broken stone (it's an old graveyard, not actively used any more, and there are any number of broken stones around)... and it was only last month that my brother took me out to the "new" graveyard for Kirkwall and showed me where Dad's parents' grave was... and we were wondering aloud where his first wife was buried!

Maybe we've just found out!?

A Peedie Bit O' Orkney...

In the graveyard around St Magnus Cathedral (which is no longer a "live" graveyard, in that our cemetary is now on the outskirts of Kirkwall, and the Cathedral one hasn't seen a burial for a very long time) there is an unusual headstone.

See if you can spot why...

Many thanks to the Orkney Communities photo archive for the photo... there's a link to the right - it's well worth a look, even for non-Orcadians.

A Peedie Bit O' Orkney...

Probably the most famous landmark in Orkney... St Magnus Cathedral, started in 1137, most Northerly Cathedral in the British Isles, and what gave Kirkwall its status as a city and Royal burgh.

St Magnus differs from most churches in that it doesn't belong to the church, but to the people and city of Kirkwall, and has done since 1468.

It's an incredibly beautiful building, slap bang in the middle of the main street of Kirkwall (but when it was built, it stood on the waterfront, before a large area of land was reclaimed).

It's mainly built from local red sandstone, and includes Norman and Gothic architecture... mainly because it took so long to complete, and fashions change.

Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Magnus_Cathedral