Lorraine considers paranormal explanation for sheet targeting Ross

A Gore woman's fitted sheet has come off the line and landed on the same roof across the road for eleven Mondays in a row, and she has stopped pretending it's a coincidence.

Lorraine Baird, 61, whose family have farmed out Waikaka way for three generations, pegs out on a Monday because that is when she has always pegged out, and the wind, she says, knows this. The towels stay. The pillowcases stay. The fitted sheet, a cream queen from Farmers in Invercargill, ends up in Ross Macpherson's spouting every time.

"I've tried six pegs. Tried eight. Tried pegging it in between the towels, like a — like a sandwich, sort of, and the towels were still there and the sheet was gone. Noeline rang before I'd even got back in the door. She said, it's here. I said I know where it is, Noeline. Where else would it be."

Ross has since stopped ringing. He folds the sheet and leaves it on Lorraine's porch, often before she's noticed it's gone. Neighbours up the street say their own washing has never shifted, and that in Southland you do not discuss the wind, same as you do not discuss the cold, you just put another jersey on. Lorraine has been told this. She has told them back that it is one sheet and one roof and she is not stupid.

A MetService spokesperson said wind across the Southland plains was "predominantly westerly" and did not "select for bedding". Gore District Council confirmed it has no bylaw covering airborne linen. Ross, asked whether he actually wanted the sheet, said: "Not really, no. It's a nice sheet. Ours is a double."

Last Monday Lorraine pegged one of Ross's sheets out on her own line, as an experiment. It stayed put all day. Hers is on his roof.