Coincidences

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

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 .

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.

I love reading these! Thanks for sharing.

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.

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!

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?

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 !

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!

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.

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 work in London and at the weekend met one of my work mates at the Gretna services in Scotland. We recognised each other even with masks on.

Nearly 40 years ago I worked for an insurance company and paid out an endowment policy to an old lady with the same surname I'd committed to memory after reading it one hidden document I'd found in my (not nice) mother's wardrobe when I was searching for Christmas presents (I was 7 years old).
The old lady turned out to be my grandmother, who then contacted my biological father - who I'd never met. My father and I enjoyed our reunion until his death 20 years later ?

DH and I met whilst holidaying in Italy. The first time he visited my home town after we returned to UK he was greeted by a girl as we walked along the High St. She was his holiday romance from the year before when they were in Spain.

We went to Devon from Kent a few years ago and met our next door neighbour. We knew they were on holiday the same week but didn't know where they were going.

So many great stories on here!

Lion is a brilliant film - well worth seeing.

Browsing around Ancestry I found someone else's family tree with my father's name in it. I contacted her and she turned out to be a second cousin, now living in the States. She said she had come back to visit family members in the 60s, but I had no recollection of her at all, though she described my grandmother's garden perfectly. We have stayed in touch, and a couple of years later a first cousin was having a clear out and sent me some old photos to identify. They were taken in my grandmother's garden, and there was a strange woman and three girls sitting in chairs alongside my mother, grandmother and me. It turned out that this was my second cousin and her mother and two sisters, one of whom died of Covid only a couple of months before, so we did meet, and the photos gave her some comfort.

I moved to Germany in the 70s and during my first week got chatting to a Scottish couple in a local bar. They said how strange it was that they rarely met British people in there and yet they’d been talking to two English brothers who’d just left. It turned out they were lads I’d known very well from the village I grew up in (population 1200).

And in Alaska another tourist, a teacher, commented that her headteacher had the same accent as me. It turned out that her boss was one of my best friends from school 40 years earlier.

Husband took a wrong turning and we ended up at a different beach to the one we were headed for. The children needed a cold drink and to let off a bit of steam so we headed to the hotel beach bar. We were 5000 miles from the U.K., 100 miles from our then home.
I recognised a voice at the bar. It was the guy everyone expected me to marry when we were teenagers. He was on his honeymoon and they were waiting for the taxi to take them to the airport for the flight home.
Both of us were stunned and I blurted out (in a stupid, stupid attempt to cover the awkwardness) “Well, it was expected that we would end up together on honeymoon.”
?
His wife assumed he had arranged the I meeting and didn’t talk to him the whole journey home.

Dh and I had been married a while and were sharing our family holiday stories. His had been more adventurous than mine and camped all over Europe.
My only experience was of a trip to Yugoslavia in 1967 when I was 18 and had shared the driving with my mum. We found a newly opened campsite and as I wandered around I saw a GB campervan with a good looking young man putting up a distinctive looking orange tent.
We didnt speak but when he told me the story of that campsite, where they stayed for only one night, we both knew it was the same one. We met on a blind date 2 years later.

Many years ago on a flight from Sydney to
Perth I met my Mums friend in the queue for the lavatory (they both lived in Spain) I was in tears at leaving my dear friend and had just been discussing with DH if we should move to Australia, Mums friend said (before she knew why I was crying) “I told your Mum you would have a difficult decision to make”

Found out since lockdown that a GN friends AC and family had met my AC and family on holiday in Ibiza several years ago and they lived five minutes away from each other here, they have remained friends. We hadn’t realised that we had met each other’s AC and families.