Amazing Coincidences

B, boys & I just spent the weekend camping with my bro-in-law and it was gorgeous weather. We sat out reminising about when we travelled Europe and it reminded me of an amazing coincidence that we experienced that i thought may be a good thread starter?

During the months of July & August 2004, we moved around Italy. Pisa - Rome - Napoli - Florence - Venice. For six weeks we didn't see a single GB car or speak to any english people. When we arrived in Florence we drove on to our campsite and we were directed to a large pitch for the van. As we drove past one couple we noticed they had a GB on the back of their car and so we made a mental note to plod up to see them once we were set up at the pitch. Few hours later we walked up and they were stood outside their tent. We nodded and said hello and once they saw we were english we stopped to chat. They too said that they were yet to see any other GB's during their 3 week stay in Italy. Whilst we were chatting away, i noticed on the registration plate for their car underneath all the letters and numbers it said BK Rollinson LE15. I quickly asked 'whereabouts are you from' and they said " You won't have heard of it, its the smallest county in England. We're from Oakham in Rutland" We couldn't believe that not only were they the only British for us to see in 2 months in Italy, but they were from the same town as us. We were all so shocked and quickly found out that they knew our parents very well and we knew their kids from school.

Now is that a coincidence?????
Anyone had any others?

Kathyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
My long lost sister................

When I was in Australia I bought a car from a car yard in Sydney. The guy who sold it to me was Australian and had just been on holiday to the UK to Looe in Cornwall, which was where I had taught for the previous 4 years.


Once in London when I was about 15, I stepped out onto a zebra crossing and nearly got run over - by one of my teachers from Wales!

I was hitchhiking round New Zealand, and got a lift in a very rural backwater, on the first time for 3 weeks that I'd been on the mainland, by someone who was from the same hamlet (about 8 houses) as my grandparents in Wales. We discovered this because we were talking about fell running, and I happened to mention my grandparent's 3-legged sheepdog.

However, I don't think this is that amazing. Humans are incredibly bad at statistics, and I am sure there were just as many near-misses & 'coincidences' that didn't happen or I did not realise.

Lets hope not Nicko :-)

Cool KK & DG!

A less amazing one was when i was 11 and my dad had just bought another place in London to rent out. We all went down there to check it out and for my mum to work her interior deisgn magic on it. dad got annoyed with us and gave us a couple of quid to nip to the Brunswick Centre for some sweets(not far) and when we walked in the sweetie shop i bumped into my woodwork teacher from school :-)

This is an absolutely true story.

One of my cousins, who's a bit older than me, went to work in Kenya after graduating from uni in the mid-80s. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air.

The elephant seemed distressed so John approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot, and found a large thorn deeply embedded in it.

As carefully and as gently as he could, he worked the thorn out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face him and with a rather stern look on its face, stared at him. For several tense moments John stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.

John never forgot that elephant or the events of that day. Twenty years later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where John and his son Alex were standing. The large bull elephant stared at John and lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at him.

Remembering the encounter back in the 1980s, John couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. He summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again.

It wrapped its trunk around one of John's legs and hurled into the enclosure wall, killing him instantly.

So it probably wasn't the same elephant.

Two of my mates from school, good friends with one another, bumped into each other in Australia without knowing the other had gone there.

I was being driven into the deep jungle the other side of the workd in Fiji to stay with a Fijian family. There was another backpakcer in the van and we began the usual backpack chat - "where are you staying, where have you been, where are you from etc etc".

He said "oh, I'm from east yorkshire, a small town". "Whereabouts exactly?" I enquired. "A small place, you won't have heard of it". Try me, I said. "A small place near Beverly in Yorkshire", he said. "Go on" I said. "Tiny place called Brandesburton" he said. I couldn't believe it. I told him I knew the place and that my ex in-laws had a farm there. He stared at me in disbelief and asked if it was Mrs X. OMG, yes it's her. He laughed and said he knew her as his parents were currently going through a legal dispute with them.

Was on a course many years ago and got paired up with a girl and we had to find out stuff about each other. It turned out that that I lived in the house she grew up in !!

Another time in Melbourne Australia I was babysitting with my mate. The mum of the kid we were sitting was talking about all these people whos names I seemed to recognise. It turned out that she knew my cousin (who then lived in Queensland and I'd just visited hence the reason I knew all the names) My cousins daughter had punched her other daughter one night in a night club and knocked her out - Oh the shame of it - I didn't know where to put my face. I explained pretty quickly that I was not like that as I was looking after her kid :o)))

I used to go to Oldham Tech. I was one the RW forum one day and this silly tart called Green Eyes ......................


OK, slightly more serious one. I was chatting to a couple in an airport in Turkey a good few years ago and it turned out that the lady was the nurse who had been with my Auntie when she died a few months earlier.

I'm about to move into the house nearly next door to where Plodding Hippo grew up.

Oh yeah I forgot about thattttt conincidence. Seems my life is full of em :o))

I've been 'technically' married for 13 years today and coincidentally the miserable bitch was miserable when I brought the kids home this evening........... perhaps thats not a coincidence and I'm just a grumpy tosser.

Mate had the habit of meeting friends wherever he went. The classic was a bus trip in a tiny bit of Egypt.

Lol muttley !

Peeee, what does 'technically' married mean?

Years ago, me and hubby decided to have a weekend break in Nottingham. Bimbling round the shops, I needed the loo, and as I was in the queue, the person whose cublicle I took turned out to be a work colleague whose family were from Chesterfield and was there on a day trip.


When I was nursing in Suffolk, I was chatting to a patient who after a while I realised had worked with my aunt at a stately home in a small Welsh town.

Once, whilst on holiday in Ibiza, I boned a girl...........I couldn't believe it when she told me she was English!

Who would have thought it?!

That's one thing I've never done Coops.

I've never been to Ibiza.

I'll take you. (for want of a better phrase)

I got boned in Ibiza by a bloke who couldn't believe it when I told him i was English