I've just returned from a whole month on the Greek island of Kefalonia - it's been in the works since pre-Covid, and has FINALLY happened this year! And it was wonderful. Two weeks with The Mothership in our usual apartments at Ammes, Svoronata, then Mum went home, and my husband Jack, along with my friend Laura and her husband Mike and their three girls, all flew out where we shared a villa at Avithos. Well acutally two, for we had to move due to the amount of mould in the annexe (aka Bunker) that Jack and I were supposed to share. Vardiola Beach Villas are going under, and they frankly couldn't be bothered with our complaining, but that's another story...
Anyhow, because Kef' is large and has so many places inland to see, a car is essential. I have been scooting around the island for 18 years (the first 2 we did the tourist coach thing), and although it certainly has it's nervy moments, I enjoy it. This year, like most, we hired a little Fiat Panda. It has to go up hills in first, and sometimes it lifts off going round the hairpins, but it's small on those narrow mountain roads, and it doesn't guzzle petrol.
At the villa, Jack and I parked our little beast just out of the intended driveway as it's a bit of a tight squeak what with Mike's bigger car in front of the house. A few years ago our numberplate was EVP! Imagine my joy! And this year I was on the hunt for a bike with the plate KEN 611. If you're familiar with the fabulous Uncanny podcast, you'll know what I'm on about... I never found it but I like to think I came close! Anyway I digress.
On the first morning at the villa we (Mike, Jack and myself) had to go to the car hire office due to what I shall describe as an 'extrememly unfortunate but could-have-been-worse incident' at the airport, when Mike was literally just pulling in to get his family aboard. We were going in Mike's car, but I walked ahead to the Panda just up the lane to get something out of the boot. I said I'd wait there for the pair of them, then I'd hop in and off we'd go.
However, I did my boot-rummaging, and there was no sign of the boys. So I got bored and began walking up the lane, past the gorgeous olive groves and dusty shaded small holdings in which chickens clucked and turkeys gobbled. The mountain view was stunning at any time, but in the mornings, Enos took on a misty magnificence, a blue-hued majesty that is breathtaking. So I was quite enjoying my stroll, but there was still no sign of the others! It wasn't as if there was a different route out, for it was one way only to the main road/lane. I rang Jack.
"Where are you?!" I asked. Jack replied, "How did you do that?!"
"Err, what do you mean?"
"How did you get past us?"
I didn't have a clue what my beloved was on about, and so glossed over this. I told him I was about half a mile up the lane and nearly at Greekstones's office! He was muttering something, and said they'd see me in a minute.
What happened? Well, very odd indeed. As they reached the Panda, pulled up in the lane outside the villa complex, both Jack AND Mike saw me, inside the driver's seat. They made eye contact. I waved. Jack believes I even stuck my tongue out at him. I was wearing my red and black dress that for the purposes of keeping the facts straight, was still in my suitcase unpacked in our abode.
They held back, thinking that I was going to drive the Panda after all, lead Mike to the office - and that's why the delay.
However, as you know, I was nowhere near the car.
The dress that they saw me in was what I'd been wearing the night before, not what I was wearing that morning. Both of them were utterly flummoxed when they finally picked me up. They were adamant that I'd been there and snuck out of the car to run up the lane! Not so.
So what had they seen? An apparition of me? Was this a dopleganger moment? Who knows, but it shook them both.
Below are both Mike's and Jack's individual accounts of the incident, written whilst apart when Mike was in Kent and Jack in Holland, now back at work.
Make of it what you will, but on that island, anything's possible...
Mike's Account:
"I was driving and Jack was in the passenger side, and when we drove past your car, I saw Ann in the it. So we waited just past it. After a while Jack went to see what was happening, and she wasn't in the car. So Jack walked back toward the house a bit, and when she wasn't there, called Ann, who was actually at the other end of the road..."
Jack's Account:
"I got in the car with Mike, saw Ann go in the direction of our car (Panda). When we drove through the drive and past the car I saw Ann in it and was sure we made eye contactand acknowledged each other. We assumed as Ann was in it (the car), that she was going to follow us, waited a few mins then I walked back to see what was holding her up, then called, and she said she'd walked on ages ago..."
Dopleganger incidents are not uncommon. Disturbingly they often seem to signify imminent death or ill fortune, but thankfully, such was not the case. If you've read some of my other blogs and bits and pieces on this website you'll know that 'atmospheres', apparitions of the living, are also fairly run-of-the-mill, far more common than I think the 'normal' community could begin to understand. I would also like to stress that this occurred in the middle of nowhere, not in a touristy area but in a rural area. There is no through-traffic, no pedestrians aside from the odd farmer or on that morning, myself! There was nobody loitering in or around our little Panda. And it had definitely been our car that I had apparently been in.
I had no weird sensations that morning, did not feel that I was in any way fragmented, tormented or anything like that. How does it feel to be a disturbed echo of the self? Fine!
I am very glad that both Mike and Jack saw independently whatever this thing was, for although it's a little disturbing, it's also very interesting.
With the history that this island has seen, if someone like myself connects with the place I guess at the right time in the right way, who knows what may be unlocked. The fairly recent massacres that occurred during the war here must mean that the amount of emotional impact and devastation still resides, perhaps in an energy form latent, waiting, simply needing a switch to be turned on. Heaven knows, Kefalonia is groaning beneath the weight of ghosts. Perhaps Mike and Jack have seen one.
Welcome to the World-of-Weird, boys!
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