This is something that happened to me last week (12th September) and far from being frightened I had a little smile on my face the whole time.
When I was a little boy, my grandma (we always called her mama) used to make an old wive's remedy for colds and fever called blackberry vinegar. We had this morning and night during the winter and fair do's we never got colds.
After mama passed away I inherited her recipe for blackberry vinegar but it was to be 10 years later that I was to make any.
I won't bore you with how you make the stuff but it involves boiling vinegar for about 15 minutes; if you've ever smelled vinegar boiling you'll know what I mean when I say the smell makes your eyes water!
The vinegar had been boiling for around 5 minutes when the smell of Yardley Tweed suddenly filled the kitchen completely overpowering the vinegar; it was so strong I could taste the stuff. At this same point my lovely black Labrador jumped up from the sofa like he'd been shot, let out a low growl and ran outside, his hackles up and he wouldn't come in for an hour. The smell was there for all of 2 seconds, it may have been a bit longer but not more than that and I wasn't scared in the slightest; I wasn't scared of her when she was alive so I'm definitely not scared of her now. The Tweed smell is something that most of my family has smelled at one time or another over the years and it just plain doesn't bother any of us, apart from my dog.
The second part to this is my bread knife. I lost my bread knife a few weeks ago, turned the kitchen upside down and it just wasn't there. I mean properly had everything out of the drawers, emptied the cupboards, everything.
Well, I decided to ask for some help to find it seeing as my mama had decided to pay a visit. I opened the cutlery drawer and my bread knife was laid on top of the cutlery tray in the perfect position for me to see it. I was so impressed by the placement I took a photo with my camera.
I've felt my mama's presence on several occasions since she passed away as have my family, particularly my dad (her son) and I'm sure he has stories of his own.
By the way, my dog came in off the garden eventually:)