In the kitchen

     This is a first. Our kitchen has 6 doorways. One on the west wall, which leads outside and is the door we most use. On the north wall one doorway leads to the basement, it is a solid steel door with a large slide bolt lock. Also on the north wall is the doorway that leads from the kitchen, past the rear stairs, to the diningroom. On the eastern wall is another door that leads outside. We rarely use this door in the summer and even less frequently in winter. On the south wall are two doors, both lead into the pantry. The westernmost of the two is the one we use to get into the pantry, but due to the need for more wall space, we never use the easternmost of the two doors. In fact there is a hoover cupboard in front of it on the kitchen side and a washer in dryer in front of it on the pantry side. My wife and I were just finishing up supper (about 4 pm EDT). At the kitchen table, my wife sits facing the fireplace on the southwall, I sit facing the western entrance door. We were simply discussing events of the day when a door (behind me) was head to open and close and footsteps behind me. Taken by surprise,. I though some one had come in the eastside door to the outside. My wife looked startled saying "What the...". I turned and saw nothing. The dog, who was lying on the fdloor facing west, jumped up, turned and looked east. I said,"Who...?" My wife said, "There was nobody there, but the steps went into the diningroom." She was facing that side, so she would surely have seen anyone ,or thing, walk through that portion of the room. I heard the noise and steps and had to turn around to look. Strangely our dog did not further react to the episode, but did sit facing east for several minutes before lying back down. Those footsteps were close, passing not over three or four foot from where I was sitting. The door that sounded like it opened and closed is the one that hasn't been used in 27 or so years. That door is totally blocked. It would seem this could be a very active year.