prompted by other post about coincidences I thought I would tell you about this one.
now being ex navy I have been in some places around the world and bumped into people from home town or know my parents etc usual thing for most people.
But once whilst I was stationed at Yeovilton in somerset, I missed my lift home to Wales for the weekend. So raced out of gates and run to the Podymore roundabout on A37. not the fittest but a damn sight fitter than I am now, I got to A37 Bristol road and turned and stuck thumb out to hitch a lift. bearing in mind, I could have been faster and got another lift or a bit slower and missed first car. Literally he came off roundabout as I turned and put thumb out he pulled over.
This is how conversation went!
Jumped in and he said
where to? I said Bristol onto South Wales. Ok turns out he is going to South Wales. Result.
Where in South Wales? Bargoed near Caerphilly area. Great he is going to Bargoed. Bigger Result, very lucky.
Ok where in Bargoed? now I am getting a bit concerned, is he a weirdo? Usk Road I say.
That's handy, just up from Bristol Terrace? Yes, getting spooked now, remember I was only about 18.
which end? Mountain end,
oh do you know such and such? I said yes, the youngest married my best mate?
Well I am their uncle going up to stay with them.
what are the chances?
Any others have strange coincidences?
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Years later I had my first ski holiday in Meribel. On the last day my legs were knackered, so instead of skiing I wandered into the village to buy T shirts and souvenirs with some of my friends. As I walked down to the village with a group of friends I was overcome with the sound of the track "When you see a chance". I had been in the mountains for a week and had not thought of it, but as we walked down the hill it filled my head and I stopped and told my friends about when had first heard the sing. They thought I was daft.
We arranged to meet in "Le Pub" at 11:00. I arrived a few minutes early, and what was playing but "When you see a chance". I immediately thought that they must be playing a tape that I'd heard earlier in the holiday and I'd heard it and made the connection, but at the end of the song (by which time my friends had arrived and had heard the song) it transpired that it was a radio show.
Spooky.
2) Last week my band was discussing new tracks to add to our setlist. I reviewed a number of tracks while travelling to a pre-season football match - the last track I considered was "All Summer Long" by Kid Rock.
The first song played in the pre-game show was "All Summer Long".
Spooky.
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Anyway, he phoned and said, "I noticed that you have an 01480 number. You don't happen to live in St Neots, by any chance?"
"Yes", I replied, "Eynesbury, to be precise."
"What a coincidence! My sister lives in Eynesbury and I'll be visiting her tomorrow. What street do you live in?"
"Howitt's Gardens"
"You're joking! My sister lives in Howitt's Gardens!"
And so I had a Space Echo delivered to me the next day by a lovely bloke who became a good friend. Weird how some things work out.
I said maybe.....
I was with Mrs Oct in a restaurant once in Melbourne and the waitress looked at my forearm tattoo and said 'I like the design' and then showed me a tattoo she had done on her... upper chest area (which in itself was a treat).
I took one look at the design and said 'That looks like an Annabelle Headlam design', who is a tattooist now based out of Austria that I knew from Sydney when she was living there.
The waitress said 'Wow, yeah it is. I used to work with her in a bar in Sydney'.
I said 'Would that be the Basement?' (A well known jazz club in Sydney).
'Yes, it is' she replied.
Well you must know [my best mate from those days and who I went travelling with through South America].
'Yes, I do' she replied 'we used to date'.
So this woman is the ex girlfriend of my best mate who split up with him 6 months before I met him and we went travelling.
He had talked about this ex on a regular basis but I'd never met her.
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A couple of of months later she was in a pub in Gosport explaining the story to some friends when a man on the next table, who was messing with a camcorder, overheard and interrupted to say he was there filming the dancers and had the footage on the camcorder and showed them.
I was on holiday with my parents, in Cyprus, when we got into a taxi. The guy driving used to live in the same street as my mum.
I met an old school friend from Newport, quite by chance, in Brighton as I was walking home from the train station. That one was quite sad / poignant for me, because at 30 years old it was quite clear that I had drifted so far from the young carefree me, and was now a career man with attitudes far different from my friend, whereas she was still in perpetual student mode and was in Brighton doing "art and stuff". We exchanged numbers and I think we both knew that neither would call the other. It should / could have been a wake-up call for me, I was still child-free and largely responsibility-free.
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Flew out Sunday got there Monday, did inspection Tuesday rest of week off till I flew out Friday.
So Wednesday popped into Port Stanley radio station for a chat as I also work on a radio station they said do a show if you want. So I did but had to wait in studio as another Presenter was in next studio finishing her show. waved through the window to say hi and that was it.
Back home in Sherborne speaking to landlord of local pub about it and he said our new barmaid is from Falklands, we were introduced where I found out presenter I had waved to was her mum!
She worked there, and we chatted for a couple of minutes. I went to sit down and a chap at another table said 'that's strange, we live in Stafford as well'.
I noticed the other couple in the bar smiling, and asked 'go on, don't tell me you live in Stafford as well', half-jokingly.
'No, we don't - we live in Rugeley', was the reply. Rugeley's about six miles away.
What are the odds?
So we were amazed and called the drummer's friend in New York who was a statistician/mathematician. Turns out it's highly improbably, I can't remember the number he came up with, but ridiculous.
... somewhere in Canada, but I’ve been living in England for the past couple of years.
Me : Oh where ?
Near Reading
etc etc further questions getting geographically closer and closer,
until it turns out she had been doing her A levels 200 yards from where we live
The next night, we drove down to Lajatico for the open-air concert. I went to get a couple of drinks and standing next to me in the queue were the two American women again. We chatted again.
The next day, we drove across from Florence to Pisa to drop the car off and fly home. On the way to Pisa we thought we'd stop off at a very lovely place called Lucca, about 20km away from Pisa. We stopped by an ice cream van (it was bloody warm) - next thing, a tap on the shoulder and... yep. It was them.
We talked a bit more and I mentioned that I'd like to visit Lubbock, Texas (the birthplace of Buddy Holly) next year. Said the younger one of the two, 'I'm from Lubbock'.
My band played a marquee wedding in rural Staffs where the groom reformed his University band - they used our gear and played their usual 5 song indie set from the early 90s. I got talking to their singer (who'd been using my amp) and he told me he'd come down from Sheffield for the wedding and also that he was Bjorn in an Abba tribute.
The very next weekend I went with my wife to her work colleague's 50th birthday party at her work's social club in Stafford. I was vaguely aware she'd booked an Abba tribute but imagine my (and his) surprise when it was the same bloke.
Bear in mind that the odds of playing those two specific songs out of over 30,000 is about one billion to one.
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I have to go to Sweden for work in August, flying into Copenhagen.
On the very same day the ex is flying to Copenhagen with the kids to visit her new partner in Sweden.
Just waiting to find out if we're going to be on the same flight.................
I said maybe.....