Coincidences

When I visited Malta when my late husband was there on board his aircraft carrier, we were on a local bus when a man in RAF uniform, sat behind us, tapped me on the shoulder - he had been at the same grammar school as me and had recognised me.

We went on holiday with my sister and brother in law, and found the people in the next caravan were from our town and my b-i-l knew them. Every day we bumped into each other during our week there, despite not making up our minds where to go until the last minute. We even followed them home the first part of the journey home. It was very amusing.

My sister and I (on opposite sides of the country) often send someone the exact same birthday card.

My friend's son went to Australia for a year. Standing at a bus stop a young man asked if he'd gone to Biffy. Biffy is a slang name for the college he'd attended in Belfast. Indeed both boys had attended the same Belfast college!

At school my French teacher used to say that if a French person saw our store-front windows with SALE all over them in January, they might think they were all dirty!
This sprung to mind one January while looking at the local department store windows, 500 miles from where I grew up, and lo and behold there appeared my French teacher and her boyfriend. I hadn't seen her for 10 years or so, and it was a lovely moment, but when I told her I'd just brought her story to mind in that moment, she did look at me strangely.
I like Kate Bush's song 'Strange Phenomena' - sums it up for me.

My DH was working in Hong Kong, he nipped out of the office at lunch time and ran straight into an old school friend who he hadn't seen for some years who it turned out was also there on a business trip. They decided to go for a drink and a catch up and as they walked down the street towards the bar they ran into another old friend. They all ended up going for lunch together. I don't think they could get over the coincidence, three people who hadn’t met in ages, all from the same small village bumping into each other in such a busy city, half way around the world.

When living in Cyprus went to dinner with friends where we met a lady who was staying with them on holiday from the UK.
Three or four years later we were on a camp site in far West Wales; I went to the loos at midnight and who should appear but the woman we'd met in Cyprus! She was also in Wales on a camping holiday.

Another holiday: sitting in a tea shop on the Lizard in Cornwall it turned out that the couple on the next table were friends we knew when we lived in Singapore.

We bumped into a family from our kids primary school when in a park in Orlando years ago.

I had an awkward one night stand with a flatmates friend who was staying overnight. Quite embarrasing but we were leaving for Italy the next day. A few days later we were sitting on a bus in Florence when who should get on but him. We nodded but didn't speak.

40years ago I was on a coach trip with our local toddler group. We were on our way through Lancaster when my 3 year old said “See uncle Michael ?” l was amazed that she knew that her Godfather, Michael, was at Lancaster uni. “Maybe at weekend, “ I answered. She then pulled my face towards the coach window, pointing to a figure on an island in the middle of the busy road .... and there he was. “See... uncle Michael ! “

My first marriage lasted 28 years. Soon after becoming divorced I met my current partner . When we had been seeing each other for a few weeks we discovered that we had both previously got married on exactly the same date and year. We had even had exactly the same time for the wedding ceremony. It still seems very odd!

Many years ago I was leaving London Kings Cross for a trip to Edinburgh. I stood at the door looking outward only to see an incoming train and there at a door was a fellow who used to be in my class at school.

My DD who has no accent halving lived in a few places and worked in London' had been to stay with us when we moved to the North West.
When she went home to a country in the far east, she was in a supermarket when a chap tapped her on the shoulder and said do you come from...? Her reply was no but my parents do and have moved back, the chap had gone to school with DH. We can only think she used an expression we would use when her child had moved away and the chap had picked up on it.
Once on holiday in a quiet part of Scotland, a couple walked past and said hello then doubled back it was DH's much older cousin who lived hundreds of miles from us and did not know we were on holiday.

When I was working a new man joined our department. He had just moved into the area. We discussed our families and some time later he asked me if I would consider babysitting for him. I agreed and checked the address- it was a house I had lived in as a girl! It was very strange going back into the house nearly 40 years later.

An acquaintance of mine who lived near me went on holiday to a place 80 miles from where we live . She got chatting to a man sat near her on the beach . He turned out to be my DH’s
brother ! He lives about30 miles in the other direction.

We lived in Seychelles for a couple of years when we first married. Our house was perched on the side of a hill. There was a large rock (5 or 6 feet high) wedged in the back wall. It had been swept down by the monsoon rains. Several years later I was working at an Oxford college. I was expecting my daughter and about to leave. My replacement popped in for a quick chat. Turned out that she was Seychellois and had lived in our house after we left. Sadly the house was no more as one day very heavy rainfall had dislodged a massive rock which had careered right through the house causing a lot of damage!

Bus stops in Australia! My daughter was in Cairns and from the top deck of her bus she spied someone at a bus stop from her 6 Form

A number of years ago we were in Florida together with my brother and his family. In the taxi on the way back to the airport the driver asked if we minded if his son came along as he too needed to go to the airport. We had no objection as there was plenty of room. We started chatting with the son only to find out he had spent the previous year in the next village to us, where my sister in-laws parents also lived.

On a self drive tour of New England about 25 years ago, DH and I visited the Holocaust Memorial in Boston. On turning round I met an acquaintance who I knew from a weekly badminton class.

I once called in sick at work so I could go on a day trip to London, I was walking down the train when a voice said "hello" - it was my boss

Today we had a cover teacher in my class who had never been to this school before. She had a distinctive surname the same as a lad from my youth 45 years ago.
He and his friend went out with my friend and I.
Jokingly I asked do you know a XX. A few questions later it turns out to be her husbands brother!

My first husband turned out to have the same birthday - day, month AND year - as my husband's first wife!!

The man I married used to live opposite me with his first wife. I was just a teenager, I never knew him but always admired his car which he would often park in front of our house!! We met in a club years after he had divorced and moved elsewhere.

I took my grandson to a playtime at a church near his home and got talking to one of the helpers. We talked about churches and I said about one I had attended for many years and it turned out she was the daughter of the vicar who christened all my children 40 years previously.

Strange how many of these stories involve Australia! Mine does too: on a coach trip to Scotland, we had to make an unscheduled loo stop in a small village near the Scottish border. There was an Australian lady in our group. In the shop she got chatting to the girl behind the counter. They discovered that this girl was to get married the next week and then emigrate - not only to the same city as our Australian travel companian - but to live in the same road!

I've loved reading all your stories, so many extraordinary tales makes you wonder what the heck ?