COINCIDENCE

In the 70s german friends visited us for a week. They had been going through some difficulties and the husband had had an affair, much to his wifes distress. We took them around the sights and waited for a nice day to take them to london. We got up there, wandered round randomly and decided on the off chance to go into westminster abbey. As we walked round the abbey my friend was in tears. The girlfriend, also german, was in the abbey too.

I've just experienced the most incredible coincidence that really made me think. It was lovely and I found myself in tears. There truly is more to heaven and earth etc...

I'm with some previous posters on this. I don't believe in coincidence either. There have been so many incidents in my life, that I'd be here all day relating them to all of you lovely people.

One of them started about 26+ years ago when an ex and I were on holiday in Portugal, and we met a young couple on their honeymoon. We did a few touristy trips together as couples and then went our separate ways.

The next summer, we went on a houseboat for a couple of weeks with my late father, and stopped off at a small town on the Thames for supplies. Walked into a local supermarket and bumped in to the wife of the couple that we'd met in Portugal. Apparently her husband was away and she was staying with her family.

And the 'coincidence' doesn't end there. The next summer, my ex and I went to an airshow in another part of the country where we were visiting friends. We heard someone call out my ex's (unusual) name. Yup, you've guessed it - it was the husband of the couple. I've never seen them since, but often wonder what happened to them.

Some amazing stories. I have remembered 2 more.
Whilst on a camp site in Southern France a couple camping next to us we talking about an accident that had happened a few years previously outside his place of work and how he had helped the car driver. The driver was my DH.
Same holiday, my DH spotted a car that he recognised as one is Dad had owned. He spoke to the owner and sure enough there was his Dads name in the log book.

When my son was travelling in Australia he met an Australian girl at a beach party, she was a hairdresser and gave him a free haircut.
3 years later he was in the sticks in Southern Ireland and stopped at a remote B&B for the night and who was in the bar, The said hairdresser, so he got another free haircut!

Some years ago our daughter's friend, a journalist and author, was travelling around India researching for the travelogue she was intending to write. Lo and behold we boarded a train in some far remote town and there she was in the same carriage. She said she had been feeling a bit alone and all she wanted was a hug from her parents or her best friend (our daughter) and instead she got a hug from her best friend's parents. A few years later when she was travelling around Asia researching for her next book and we were on holiday in Bangkok, who should come down to breakfast at our hotel but our daughter's friend. The coincidence is referred to in both her books.

I sat next to a lady on the bus and got chatting. We both lived in Thanet, we both had one grandson, we were both sixty, we were both retiring, we were both born in December. We were both allergic to cats and while we were wondering how amazing all this was we discovered that we both married in September 1976. When she got of the bus I wanted to call her back I felt such a connection to her.

20 miles away from home this afternoon we stopped for tea ,as we walked into the Tea shop a woman asked are you G ...the photographer,you took my sisters wedding photos 30 years ago ....at that the woman behind the counter joined in..you did mine 18 years ago and you haven't changed a bit....lolWhats the odds of two out of three people in a shop so far from home both being clients ...and both remembering you after all that time ?

I went to school in Berlin in the early 70's. I had 3 really good friends, two of who I lost touch with when I left in 73.
One I remained a penpal with. At this point I lived on The East Coast of Scotland and she in Wales. I had three children at school. One of DD2's friends family went to Manchester for a wedding, and lo and behold my friend from Berlin was at the same wedding.
A small world indeed.

One year we were on holiday in Ibiza. On the first day we went for a walk and my DH said "Here come next door". As he had been happily chatting to the couple in the next room I thought he meant them but no it was neighbours from home on their last day. We knew they were away but had no idea where they had gone.

For our silver wedding we went to San Francisco and then on to Yosemite National Park. On the last night we stayed at a motel about 30 miles from San Francisco. In the morning I went to the reception to pick up coffee and pastries as is the norm and the owner had overslept. I started to talk to another lady while we waited. As we walked back together my husband and her husband were chatting by the cars outside our rooms. Her husband said "You will never guess what but P........ works at the same company in Stevenage and they are here on their Silver Wedding anniversary just the same as us. Mind you he was a manager and they had been there for 3 weeks while we had crammed so much into 10 days.

I agree with whoever said that a lack of coincidences would be even more extraordinary. Once I started to think about it I could remember several. By the time we get to our age, so many things have happened, mostly unremarkable, but some which do seem diiferent. Why not?

We were on a boat trip on a lake in China when we got talking to a couple from London. When we told them where we lived they said they'd been recently staying with friends who'd bought a house in a place about twenty miles from our home. It turned out to be a house I had designed!

A few years ago I was telling a work colleague about a 1970s song I had always liked and which I hadn't heard for years. She had never heard of it, as she was much younger than I was. At lunchtime we decided we would go to Debenhams for a browse. I could not believe it, they were playing "my song". If that wasn't enough, when I got home that evening... "my song" was being played on the radio!! How weird is that!!

In my student days I was staying in a youth hostel abroad and chatted to some girls who told me where they were from in England. I said that one of the boys from my primary school friendship group had moved there when we left primary school and I wondered if they knew him, I never heard from him after we left primary school. It turned out that they had never met this boy where they lived but had met him on a ferry during their holiday.

Years ago, whilst exploring the Catacombs in Rome, I thought I heard the voice of a teacher, who had previously worked in my school. I thought I was hallucinating when I heard her very distinctive voice echoing through the tunnel. On turning a corner, there she was in all her glory..
A couple of years later, whilst on holiday in Salamanca, Spain, on coming downstairs in the hotel, I heard this very same voice again. As I peered over the banister, there she was again!

Think of all the times that you went on holiday, or stood in a queue in the post office, or climbed a mountain and didn’t bump into somebody that you knew though.?
We only notice the odd moments that stand out, although I really like the two tortoises story and the dustbin lid that blew back onto it’s own bin.?

Just remembered something else. My friend's son was standing at a bus stop in Australia. The person standing beside him asked if he'd gone to Belfast Tech. He had, and they had been in the same class. They'd both gone travelling and met at a bus stop.

Years ago, before wheelie bins, we had a plastic dustbin with a separate lid. During a storm the lid blew away. About two years later during another storm the lid blew back and landed on the bin. I can only think it was stuck in a tree all that time but I couldn't believe it found it's way back to it's exact spot.

I find coincidences fascinating and have enjoyed reading these posts. I am reminded that I once heard a statistician say that a world without coincidences would be truly extraordinary. They are bound to happen - and we remember and remark on the coincidences which are meaningful to us, and forget others which don't seem to have significance for us. However, I cannot quite abandon the thought that they may have meaning. Jung famously thought there were no coincidences and wrote about synchronicity.

On a visit to Cambridge I met a small group of prospective students, including a young English man who I chatted to but we didn't keep in touch. We met again by chance a couple of months later at a conference in Finland and then a few months later I went to Glasgow and bumped into the same chap in Sauchiehall Street. I never did find out his name.

We were moving from one town to another, about 20 miles away. DD who was only 9 didn't want to move and was upset in class. Her teacher asked what the matter was and DD told her. Teacher asked where she was moving to and DD told her. 'I used to live there' said teacher. 'What road' - DD tells her. 'I lived in that road, what number'? DD tells her. 'That is my old house'. We couldn't believe it but it was absolutely true. She could tell DD about the park nearby, the ice rink and swimming pool and how much she enjoyed living there. We spend 24 very happy years there.

As my son was doing his DoE gold, tramping up a hill in the Lake District, he met his cousin coming down. But his cousin lives in New Zealand !

So many wonderful stories. We've had some very strange coincidences over the years. A few weeks ago I was on a train and sat opposite a man at a table. I never speak to strangers normally however for some reason that day I spoke to him. He told me he'd taken an earlier train than he should have and then said where he'd come from - the town we left nearly 40 years ago. He asked where I'd lived and when I told him the road he asked what number - turned out he'd bought my parents hotel a couple of years after they sold it! He spent the rest of the journey drawing diagrams on a newspaper of the way he'd turned it into apartments.

Many years ago my husband was on the road a lot and on the motorway one evening in thick fog when he saw a man walking down the hard shoulder with a petrol can. Typical of him he stopped and asked if he needed a lift - the man was totally disorientated and couldn't remember where he'd left his car. Knowing the area well my husband managed to pinpoint where it would be and got him back to his car before heading home. Several weeks later my dad was playing golf with someone who recounted this tale of the good samaritan who'd rescued him on the motorway! He was dumfounded when dad told him that was his SIL!

On a camping holiday in remote West Wales, went to the toilet block last thing at night. There was another lady waiting, who I recognised. We had met her at a dinner party on a military base when we were posted to Cyprus; she was on holiday there staying with some friends of ours. Another time we were in a cafe on the Lizard in Cornwall, and noticed the people on the next table looking at us. Turned out to be a couple we knew from when we were living in Singapore.

A few years ago my ex and I, along with two friends went to Whitby for a weekend. As we were tramping up to the abbey overlooking the town we met my best friend with a couple of her friends coming down! None if us knew the others were going to the same place.