Coincidences

How wonderful for you JackK. The other stories are all interesting and fun but your must have had a profound effect on your life.

I've told this story before but here goes. I had my first boyfriend at 16. I was besotted with him. I was, at the time, a Catholic and used to pray at night. I prayed every night 'God please let me marry...the boy"s name.
This was not a very common name.
A few years later I met my DH. He has exactly the same name.

Back in the seventies we had a dustbin with a separate lid. During a storm it blew away. I managed to find a new lid. Three years later another storm. Our original lid landed back in the driveway beside the bin. What are the chances!

When I had to have an MRI I was asked if anyone had come with me. I told them I was recently widowed. Once in the machine I was asked if there was any particular music they could play for me whilst in the machine and I said anything will do.
They put a cd in and it was Nat King Cole singing 'Too Young' which we had always called 'our song' as people had said we were too young when we married. He was also my husband's favourite singer. I lay in the machine with tears running down my face. When it was time to finish the treatment the nurses all gave me a cuddle when I told them why I was tearful. I wasn't alone after all !

In 2005 we bought a derelict farmhouse in the middle of the French countryside. We never met the couple who owned the property but the man was from Orkney. It turned out that he and my husband were born on exactly the same day - including the year! When we sold the house last August the woman who bought it from us had the same birthday as me! (Not the same year). Now what were the chances of two men, born on exactly the same day, buying the same derelict farmhouse in France? Add to that the chances of us selling it to someone with the same birthday as me?

And another one! A few years ago I was driving along, listening to the radio. The DJ asked people to phone in with two songs they would choose which would make them feel happy, give them an energy boost etc. I immediately thought of two songs which I would choose if I wasn't driving. As soon as the DJ stopped talking he played two songs which had been requested. They were the two songs I'd thought of!

A few years ago DH and I were living in Shoeburyness, Essex. We holidayed in Cornwall and one day DH went for a walk to the next village. The church was open so he went in and chatted to the elderly lady who was doing the flowers. It turned out her husband was a major in the army and was stationed at Shoeburyness garrison for many years! We’ve kept in touch for many years and visited their home, although she is elderly and infirm these days so we rarely hear from them.

I love reading these! Thanks for sharing.

How weird and wonderful these coincidences are.
Another one:
I used to take off my wedding ring when working with clay at home (I'm a potter) eventually I lost it and despite searching it didn't show up. I was sad but resigned.
A few years later we had sold our house and were cleaning before moving out. At the back of the garage, in a pile of clay dust there it was!! It was on our wedding anniversary.

Years ago, pre internet days, I had been searching for ages for a video boxset of a tv series my daughter liked for her birthday. I wasn't even convinced it had even been released as a boxset. I was in Woolworths one day and tripped a bit and put my hand out to steady myself against the display of videos for sale. Well, you can guess where my hand landed! I had looked in Woolworths many times before .

My father had to leave Germany in 1933 and came to the UK where he lived in Cambridge. He and my mother returned to Germany after the war. They both lived and died there many years later.
But before my mum died she returned to visit us in Cambridge.
She went to a charity shop and looked in the music section only to find some sheet music with my father's signature in it. ... 60 years later!

Lucca

By the way Lion the film was wonderful, but the book less so !

I read the book first then saw the film.
I'd recommend doing that but did enjoy both.

My train was slowly leaving London station for a journey far north. I was standing at the carriage door in reflective mood A couple of tracks away, another train was travelling similarly slowly towards London. In a doorway window was a man who had been in my class at school ten years previously. We smiled amusedly. It was a warm moment.

When I was a little girl, aged about 8, my mum treated me to a pair of white lacy gloves. I was upset when I lost one, not least because mum would not be happy as we were quite poor. I went to my local church and prayed outside that I would find it. There it was, the glove on the ground. I still wonder if it was all a dream, as I’m not religious and only went to Sunday school. It makes you wonder about fate.

I have had so many coincidences in my lifetime. DH and I made an unplanned stop at a small town for coffee. We had never visited it but knew his gt. gt. grandparents had been born there. We wandered into the local church where we guessed they had been married. Later we discovered we had visited on their actual Anniversary. DS met a girl at University who lived about 200 miles from us. It was only at their wedding that we discovered both had grandmothers who had attended the same school.

Many years ago we were on a P & O cruise ship carrying upwards of 2,500 people, and we had opted to dine on a table for 6. On everyone introducing themselves on the first evening, we discovered that one couple, a retired policeman and his wife, lived in the same tiny village as us

The number of times I am doing a crossword when someone on the TV says the actual word I want or am writing in the grid, unbelievable.

Quite a few years ago, when we played cassette tapes in the car, I was listening to a song (I think it was one by the Beatles) on my tape. I then switched the cassette off and the car radio came on. You’ve guessed it - the same song was being played on the radio! I couldn’t believe it.

Many years ago, my dear husband and I went to Paris for a holiday. On a visit to Versailles we bumped into someone we recognised as being from our little village in Dorset. We did'nt even know we were going on holiday at the same time nor to the same place.
Another time we took a trip to Cyprus. On a visit to the Land of the Kings a coach stopped nearby and one of the people who got off was a work colleague.

I recently traced a distant cousin, our ancestral roots are in Wales. She told me of a relative who had been a vicar in the town where I was born in Cheshire, it turned out that my sister’s primary teacher was married by him in the fifties and she had gone to watch, so undoubtedly saw him. Now the church is my husbands family church, although I met him 200 miles away.

My son went to live in Berkshire and a few years later I found out that his four times great grandparents are buried in a church a few hundreds yards away.
I have many more instances!

Oh, another which just occurred to me: I went to New Zealand one year to visit my son who was working there. He and I went to Queenstown and stopped at a busy outdoor restaurant. While he went to order food a young man came up to my table and asked if he could share. There were 4 chairs. I said I was waiting for my son and he sat down. When my son came back they recognised each other as they were workmates back in England.

My husband and I lived in the same road, though I moved away to a local seaside town without knowing this. He had moved to the road I lived in from that seaside town too!

Later once we were married I found out we were born 21 months apart in a local town across the road from each other.

In between our births he had been adopted!!

Chicklette are you still living in Shoeburyness or surrounding area?

edit
In between our births and us ending up living in the same road, he had been adopted around the age of 8.....

My husband took a dislike to a male singer. On one particular morning, he walked out of the room muttering when said singer was being interviewed on tv. Later that day we were in the public library, when a book fell off the top shelf......yes a biography of the singer. In 30 years or so visiting that library, it has not happened before or since.
Ps tomorrow I shall be having my first haircut since February. Whilst I was out the other day, masked up, I was recognised - I was quite insulted!