coincidence

Coincidence is a very odd phenomenon
The odd nature of it, whether you call it  kismet or fate, can often boggle the senses, as it did to me this morning when I was out on a chance early morning errand .
I had just going to drop some eggs off for Sylvia from the flower show who has not been too well of late and was walking up London Road when a large car , which was pulling a caravan,stopped by the side of the road.
The driver wanted directions to Caerwys, which is a village perhaps six or seven miles inland, and after I had given instructions on where to go, his passenger , a lady in her sixties leant over and said in a surprised voice
" My goodness ....it's John isn't it?"
I didn't recognise her at all ( and I usually have a cracking memory for a face) so I smiled vaguely and answered " yes"
" I read your blog" The woman said in way of explanation " I read it most days"
It turned out that the couple, who live outside Boston in Lincolnshire , had come across to Wales on a weekend break, and had taken the wrong turning off the A55 on their way to the caravan park.
It was pure chance they had stopped me, the only person out walking in the village on a cold damp Friday morning.
"I never realised we were in Trelawnyd" the woman laughed " what's the chances of that? If I have known I would have asked for some of Auntie Gladys' scones"
" Have some eggs instead" I said passing a half dozen through the window.
Coincidence or subconscious design?
Who knows
it's just all rather weird
WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR MOST BIZARRE CONINCIDENCES?

Ps see the 20th comment below !

62 comments:

  1. Well what are the chances of that?!

    I love the pic of Beatrice and Eugenie!

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  2. Stalker. Definitely a stalker :-)

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  3. Jesus that's amazing !

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    1. I thought your rhyl story was better

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  4. I can still hardly believe that B actually wore that titfer.

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  5. You have a large following in Lincolnshire...coast to coast.

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  6. Re Nota Bene's theory, count your chickens...

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  7. When I was a boy I used to come for piano lessons in manchester. As my teacher got older (and iller) my mum used to drive the hour and a half and pick her up and then drive her into Manchster. 30 years later I find myself living in a house on a road that we used to drive down on that long journey.

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  8. How about THAT! And I those pictures!!! I NEVER put those two together! What a laugh.

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  9. Nobody ever believes this story, but it is true. I was working in Buckingham years ago, and tried to telephone someone in another part of the country, but dialled the wrong number by accident. After the person on the other end of the line realised my mistake, he also realised that he was my brother, who had moved without giving anyone his new number, and had not seen any of the family for a couple of years.

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    1. Several years back I was staying in a cheap hotel in the north of France. I phoned Lady M to say what time I'd be home, and somehow got connected to a war zone (I can't remember which one). I could hear shots being fired, and ended the strange call by advising the man to 'keep your head down'. Most odd.

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    2. Tom and cro
      I just knew you two would have good stories

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  10. Neither of these are my coincidences, but our friends went on holiday to Croatia last year, and whilst dining discovered they were talking to people who now lived in their first home; another friend of mine bumped into an old school friend when visiting Uluru in Australia

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  11. We took Chris' Mum and stepdad to see "The Phantom" in Toronto. We went to a restaurant afterwards. Sitting at the next table was a couple who lived next door to Chris' Mum's sister in Neath.
    Jane x

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  12. Re the ugly sisters. No one will ever persuade me that they weren't set up by their designers - that HAD to be intentional....

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  13. Wow...that is coincidence or is it?

    Love the photo match ups!!! Amazing, I had never noticed that.

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  14. Love the cartoon pictures.....

    When Nick and I were sitting in the village square, watching the world go by, enjoying a drink and debating whether or not it was sensible to buy a little house in France that would need some work doing to it, which we would not be there to organise or oversee for ourselves, a man at the next table leaned over and said "I think you might need my card".
    He was an architect from Sheffield, now living in the village and working as a project manager for people exactly like us. Without having met him we almost certainly would not have bought the house.
    That was definitely fate. If not, it was a blooming good coincidence.

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    1. Jean,note,Jane and Chris....thank you for those stories........see lots going on

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  15. Ah yes - the very famous "Disney weekend".

    The girl finally married her prince - the step sisters still are not married.

    plus a few days after the royal wedding the boogie man aka Bin Laden died.

    As nota bene said - stalker? bc if it was coincidence- what is it supposed to ultimately mean..?

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  16. I gotta be honest, I am a believer in fate/kismet...I think we too often mistake fate for coincidence rather than the other way around.

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  17. hello John
    I cannot actually believe that we talked to you this morning.
    I had no idea that we were in Trelawnydd even though the signs for the village are so large.
    you actually look younger and tidier than you make out in your writings.

    I have been a follower ever since you lost your dear sweet Mabel last year and now we know where you are, we intend to come to your open day later in the year.
    Thank you so much for the eggs
    With best wishes and surprise!
    Barbara and Geoff Kellett
    X

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    1. It was delightful to meet you, albeit briefly!
      The chances of all this made me titter.
      It would be lovely to meet up with you both on my open day too
      Johnxxx

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    2. I had to laugh at Barbara saying you look younger and tidier than expected!

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    3. Oh, he's just being coy when he blogs. He spends a fortune on waxing, teasing and monkey gland injections.....

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    4. Back, sack and crack!

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    5. And still has a face likeasack of potatoes

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  18. You are famous John!
    Rudy and I were on a trip to New York and decided one afternoon to find an off-Broadway matinee performance. We, quite randomly chose, Death and the Maiden (Dryfuss/Hackman/Streep - brilliant BTW). As we were exiting the theatre, we ran into our neighbour, a young Belgian man, who lived across the hall from us - in Tokyo! He too had chosen the play quite randomly.

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    1. I would have pissed myself seeing Hackman , Streep and Dreyfus's on the same stage!

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  19. Love coincidence--and I am enjoying the stories shared.
    The princess photos are amazing!

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  20. Even I have a story of fate to share...but probably more for when we're on a night out than for public consumption...

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  21. I love those random meeting stories! If I ever run into you somewhere, I will be ecstatic!

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  22. Not my random meeting but close. My parents went to the Galapagos (sp?) Islands in November. They have a system there that you put a postcard in a barrel and other visitors sort through it and grab the ones that go back to their country or city. No postage is attached to these cards and sometimes it can take years for them to get delivered. One week after my parents safely returned from their trip a strange man approached one of my neighbors, during the day while I was at work, asking where I lived. Turns out this man had been in the Islands not two days after my parents tossed their card in the barrel and he lived about half an hour from my town so brought it back and was hand delivering it. My neighbor accepted it and gave it to me when I got home and then the man called me later that night to make sure I got it. Kind of cool. I am so going to just make plans someday and come visit you, on purpose. So get those toilets cleaned because I am cheap and will need to stay with you and Chris. ;)

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  23. When I was a student, I lived in Crouch End in London and used to go to a pub over the road from my flat. Twenty years later when we moved down here, we went to a pub in Chagford called the Ring o' Bells and I noticed the barman looked very familiar. On talking to him I realised he was the barman from the pub in Crouch End who had somehow made the same journey down to Dartmoor.

    I often wonder if I'll meet a follower out walking on the moors having reached the dizzying heights of 50 now but I guess it's not very likely.

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    1. Stranger things have been proven to happen. X

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  24. I can't tell you how many times in very far flung places we have met people with whom we had a tenuous connection John. By Lake Louise in Canada we shared a table with a couple and after chatting it transpired that the woman's sister had lived opposite my mother in Lincolnshire for years. Even on the Great Wall of China I got chatting to some people who knew a mutual friend, and at the top of the world, at Kirkenes on the Norwegian/Russian border a woman turned out to have a sister in law who ran the gift shop in our little town.
    There is an old Lincolnshire saying that springs to mind. I'm not sure I know them and I don't think we're related by maybe they leaned their clothes prop up our chicken run.

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  25. My human friend,

    Being such a well known character, it's hardly surprising that this person would know you, or of you, anyway.

    By bizarre coincidence, my human shared a table with a couple in Lake Louise, Canada. Just like "The Weaver of Grass". How about that!

    Pawsitive wishes,

    Penny the Jack Russell dog and modest internet superstar!

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  26. Wow the real John and fresh eggs to boot brilliant !


    I had my toncils out aged 13. My mum took her mother & me to Paris a while later as a treat. The deal included two restaurants to eat in. Sat at the next table to us one evening... the surgeon who'd just extracted my toncils !!!

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  27. This is a weird story and is not being told so that you will feel sorry for me, but it's something that baffles me to this day.
    I was 26, my husband was an alcoholic and our life was less than ideal, as he would be gone sometimes for days at a time without knowing where he was or when he would return. He had messed up enough and endangered our 2 yr. old son's safety and I had told him to move out until he got help and sober. He had been on his own for about 3 weeks, and feeling the need to have him be a part of our lives, I invited him to our Thanksgiving meal at my parents. We spent the day with him and then he left for his apartment about 4:30 pm. I felt strange all evening, finally got my son to bed, then couldn't quite bring myself to change into my pajamas and go to sleep, so I laid down remaining fully dressed. I finally gave up trying to sleep about 3 am, got up and watched television and paced the floors. About 6 am, I went to the door and just stood there looking out at the driveway, about 10 minutes later, a sheriff's car pulled into my driveway and the deputy walked to my door and asked if I was the spouse of Mr Keys. I was calm and eerily relaxed, I KNEW why he was there and yet I was emotionless. I invited him inside and he told me there had been an accident, all I said was, "He didn't make it, did he?" You see, I knew this all night, I never changed clothes, and I got up to pace at approximately the same time the accident occurred. How did I know? Baffles me to this day, I have never gone to bed with my clothes on before, was that a coincidence?
    It's 24 years later and I'm still baffled.
    Life can be odd, but it makes us who we are and I'm happy with who I am, so I can't change anything for fear that would change me.
    End of my ridiculously long story.

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    1. Kelly
      That's as moving as it is strange.....
      Perhaps there is. An element of psychic ability in these sort of things
      Thank you for sharing this x

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  28. One of the oddest coincidences was meeting someone in Melbourne who lived in the same London road as me as a child. We both remembered the milkman who died of a heart attack as he delivered the milk to number 46.

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  29. Now the Wedding cartoon thing is not that amazing - the Prince in the movie is dressed like a Prince dresses, so of course Will is wearing the same thing, because he is a Prince! :) And the two dresses are totally different, but of course they are long and white because they are both wedding dresses!
    The step sisters in the movie were wearing red/pink and olive/chartreuse, some wag recoloured them to match B and E. So no coincidence at all, just malice.

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  30. As for coincidences, it amazes me how small the world can be! I saw a skirt walk past (on a person of course) once that I recognised the fabric as having been in my stash a good 15 years back. The wearer and I got talking and turns out it was indeed made from the same piece of fabric - I gave it to this lass's mother back in 99.
    In the early 80's Mum gave a bunch of my clothes to various op shops around where she worked. In 84 when I was costuming the Scottish play, the designer emptied a bag of clothes she had bought from op shops to remodel, fished a particular one out and said "Tada! This is so perfect!." My response,"Well, I made it the first time, I can remake it a second!" She was totally floored. Not really that coincidental but quite funny!
    Yes, most of my stories are about fabric and clothes, hence the Penn and Teller moment about the Disney/Royal Wedding thing, I am a sewing geek! ;-)

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    1. I take my hat off to you for your observational skills

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  31. This isn't that amazing really. We went to visit Mr O's Aunt in deep south Ireland and went out for a drive round a very, very remote area. We only saw one car all day .... which was being driven by a guy from the bottom of our street (Bill). When we got back from Ireland, I bumped into him and we were able to confirm that, yes, it was Bill.

    But on the posts above, when people have seemed to know that their loved ones have departed before they have been told, I can confirm that this happened to me. My dear Dad died on holiday in Cyprus. I was at work, a colleague received a beautiful bouquet of flowers as it was her wedding anniversary, I just felt very uncomfortable. And for the first time ever, I left the office early on that Friday (we had flexi time) as I was just.. not happy. I had not been home for half an hour when my mother rang to say that Dad had died. But I knew, even before the phone rang. Sorry, it's been 16 years, but it still hurts.

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  32. just what a friend of mine calls a "cosmic chuckle"...a lovely description for these happenings

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  33. I believe stuff happens for a reason. Nothing is random, there is a plan behind the events.

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  34. Anonymous3:57 am

    What an amazing thread this turned out to be John! Story after story like this. I got to feeling the world is such a small thing and we're all like little magnets moving around, drawn back to each other over and over again no matter how far we go.
    Dxxx

    Ps. I can leave comments when I check in on my phone. Yay!

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  35. Well, now, you must have been walking a little taller after that encounter. You're a regular blogging STAR!

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  36. How amazing. And now I feel quite chuffed that I read the blog of a CELEBRITY. A List of course.

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  37. Good on Barbara for being able to say Trelawnydd. I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce that!

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  38. My mother passed away this past June and at her visitation there were an amazing number of people there. I was in line for over three hours as people filed by to pay their respects. There were a few people that I did not know. One of those was Kyna of The Crystal Coast Gardener Blog. She and her husband were there. I noticed her from a distance and recognized her from the blog. When she got to me I looked at her and said I know you! You are Kyna. I read your blog and I found it from reading Going Gently! I’m Galestorm! I found her blog from your blog from around the world and she lives in the same area as I do! Small World!!

    My mother attended her stepdaughter's wedding and I remember she had asked me to go with her that day, but I was busy. If I had gone to the wedding, I would have met her and her husband that day!

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  39. Myna sounds like a real sweetie..... How bizarre is this Gail xx

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    1. A simple twist of fate I guess!

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