To ask for your stories of strange coincidences?

[Pepperwand]

Today I stopped at a petrol station and wanted to put £30 of fuel in the car but it blipped over to £30.10. When I went to pay I also bought two lottery tickets for £5 so paid £35.10. As I was putting the tickets in my purse I found two old lottery tickets so got them checked. First one won £30 and the second £5.10!

So, can I ask for your stories of coincidences?

My family emigrated when I was in my early teens. We have a very unusual surname. Fast forward 25 years and I’m standing in the school playground chatting to a mum who has a child in the same class as mine. Turns out her cousin is married to my cousin!! My cousin and her cousin live in my country of origin.

Not exactly a coincidence,but one of those strange things.
I've a relative in a care home with quite advanced Alzheimer's. Relative had been talking about "the old days" and a particular childhood friend. I posted on a social media group (for the area they grew up in), asking if anyone knew the friend, or indeed my relative. Had three responses -one from daughter of relative's school friend.
We arranged a visit where this person would bring in photos, and they (relative and daughter of school friend) were chatting - somewhat impaired by my relative getting confused about who/where and when pictures were. Relative then said, "Oh, I remember Old Mrs.X, she used to stand at the top of the steps in a housecoat and headscarf, with her rolling pin."
The next photo that the visitor had pulled from her bag was that exact image.

When I moved to the UK, there was only one British person I very remotely knew (old contact through old work, weren't in touch for a couple of years at the time).
I stayed in a b&b while looking for a place to rent long term, and I met her the next day after arriving. Accidentally. At the stairs. She was living in the flat next door. She totally freaked out and did not keep in touch at all after this, probably assumed I did that on purpose.

The other day I was reading something where someone mentioned Chinese university dorms and how crowded/messy they are/ Never having thought about this at all I started looking online and was soon fascinated by the different way of life university students have in China. I also found it interesting that there are dormitories just for international students which have single rooms and are bigger and more private.

When I got in the car, there was a short story on the radio, and as I turned the radio on I heard something like "the Chinese students liked to hang around the international students' dorms". Honestly can say I'd never thought about Chinese student accommodation before that day!

I started a new job (11 years ago) in a small team of around 7 people. There was a girl who was returning to the London office after a year in Hong Kong on secondment. I'd been living in my flat for about 6 years by that point and my lovely upstairs neighbour (only his and one other flat in the house) was moving to Canada for 3 years with his work. He was renting his flat out through an estate agent and - you guessed it - this girl who was coming back to London took it.

As I was friendly with the guy who owned the flat, he told me the details of the people he was going to let it out to - she worked in the same industry and the husband was in banking. I told my boss this who put two and two together and then we realised the coincidence!

I've got absolutely loads, I started keeping a 'book of coincidences.'
My dad was a big fan of comedian Spike Milligan. On the night dad died, there was a show on TV with an interview with Spike Milligan. I decided to watch it and part way through the interview the TV randomly switched off for no apparent reason. Dad was also in radio communications during the war. For a few weeks after he died, on several occasions when I was talking to mum on the phone there was a weird thing going on in the background like someone trying to talk through water.
Two years later, I won the lottery using numbers I'd picked relating to my brother who died when I was 6. I won on the same date that dad had died two years previously.

After my brother died, my mum decided she needed a change of location. My parents had been council tenants and chosen not to buy a home even though my grandad had offered to lend them the money, so they couldn't just sell up and buy somewhere new. My mum saw an ad for a housekeeper in a village close to another town, payment was by way of a rent free tied cottage. When she went for the interview she realised it was the village her great aunt had lived in, and where she"D visited as a child. She got the job as her great aunt and employer has been friends and only lived a few houses apart. Our new neighbours had the same surname as great aunt and the man turned out to be a distant relative.

After my mum died I was sorting through her stuff and found a magazine article on passion flowers. This made me smile as I hadn't seen such flowers for years. We'd had them on the cottage wall at the tied cottage mentioned above. I decided I needed some air from sorting out her flat, as this was a very emotional job. While I was out walking, I passed a bungalow that had exactly the same passion flowers growing on the garden wall.

This is a bit weird and I'm actually waiting for another major event to happen on a family members birthday just to see if it carries on. Have to be vague on details because the real events would be too identifying as I tell the story alot.

My grandad had a major event happen on his birthday.
Next year another major event happened on his birthday.
Year after that his mom dies on his birthday.
If that's not weird enough my dm had a major event happen on her birthday.
Next year another major event happens on her birthday.
Year after that her brother dies. Yes you've guess it.
On her birthday.

Not as interesting as some, but I was born at 13:13, my son was born at 12:12

This amazes me, there are 7.5 billion people in the world, what are the odds!

That's what they want you to believe

Researching my family tree I found that my maternal GGGG GPs had got married in 1800 in the same church that me and my DB were baptised in. It's still my parish church and my DS was baptised there too.

However their offspring then moved from here - up north - to Somerset and slowly meandered back up north via several counties over the last couple of hundred years. My DM was born in a different county and met my DF at Uni here. They decided to settle here, the Uni city where they met. Until I started researching I had no idea that I had any ancestors in my home city as we didn't appear to have any history here - let alone my small area of it. I find that very strange but rather lovely.

We found a photo at my Gran’s house of a group of people during the Second World War. My dad’s mum and my mum’s dad were in the photo.

We don’t know how they ended up in the same photograph. They didn’t know each other and my dad’s mum grew up in the south of England and my dad’s dad served as a soldier in europe during the Second World War and lived in the north of England!

My dad’s mum served in the same regiment as the queen and drove lorries during the war. She still says that the queen was lazy and was only seen during photo shoots!

suelleker no, somebody I hadn't heard of - I had forgotten those are Jamie Oliver's kids names though Guess they really are quite common...!

My boiler broke one morning. That night I got very drunk and decided to go ahead with a vague plan I’d formulated to kill myself by taking a lot of tablets then getting in a hot bath. I took the tablets then remembered there was no hot water so I went to bed instead and was found two days later. Absolutely random coincidence that means I’m still here years later

Before going to the theatre in London with a friend, drove to the tube station and left my car in a side street (this was many years ago when parking was much easier!). There was a family on the same row as us and we walked just behind them out of the theatre, along the road and onto the tube, then sat in the same carriage. They got out at the same stop as us, and we laughed as we set off in the same direction.
We’d actually parked outside their house. So weird.

Just thought of this weird one:

Many years ago, my then best friend's dad shared the same birthday with my mum - 3rd June.
I then met a boy whose mum also shared the same birthday as my mum and bf's dad. My best friend started seeing this boys best friend - we did the double date thing. Turns out my boyfriend's best friends mum ALSO had the same birthday, 3rd June!

We all split up before we got round to organising them a joint birthday event!

I've namechanged for this as I've told everyone I know about it!

I was waiting for my friend in a quiet little cafe this morning, she was late and I was killing time scrolling Instagram whilst I waited. I was watching a video of Paddy McGuiness talking about his daughter swearing.

I was sat really close to the open door and a big yellow attention seeking car pulled up on the pavement.I was a little irked as it's engine was really loud and the driver didn't turn it off immediately and I couldn't hear the video I was watching.

Out of the car, and in the driver walks ... it was only Paddy bloody McGuiness! as I'm sat watching a video of him talking in his loud Bolton accent, in my haste to turn it off I actually knocked my phone onto the floor and had to scrabble around frantically hoping he hadn't heard himself in my phone - I must have looked deranged.

I've never seen him before, making it probably the weirdest coincidence I've ever had!!

One of my brothers got our other brother a t shirt with a picture of his own face on it for a joke. My brother took it to Australia when he went travelling and left it behind in a hostel. When he got back he’d added an Australian girl he’d met there to Facebook and noticed a picture of one of her female friends wearing the t shirt. My brother had never met this other girl, she wasn’t from where he’d stayed and neither he nor his friend had any idea how she’d managed to get the shirt. And none of us can understand why anyone, especially a stranger, would want to walk around wearing a picture of my brothers face

I started a new job and my manager asked me where I lived. I mentioned an area in south London and he said he used to live not far from me but moved to west London the month before.

The next week he mentioned he’d be down my way that weekend because there was post at the house he’d sold and the post office had messed up the redirect so he had to go and collect it.

That night I went to visit my niece and her husband in their new house 10 minutes from us. On the table in the hallway was a pile of post addressed to my manager. They’d bought his old house!

The next day to my manager’s amazement I delivered his post saving him a journey.

I have three.

On holiday in Australia. One in a campsite in the middle of nowhere Australia chatting to my friends about how another friend Sarah’s friend Maria has moved to Australia and wondering where she had moved to. Went to the bar to get a drink and there she was.

Second, I was very close to my grandad. Used to stop and buy him his favorite drink when I visited him every weekend. He passed away and a month later I was sitting studying in my room and couldn’t stop thinking about my ex. Said out loud to the room grandad can you help me meet someone new. Went to a party the next day and met my now DH whose surname is the drink I used to always buy my grandad.

Third, my MIL called my DH giving out about how he didn’t ring her that weekend. She lived alone but was only 60 and in perfect health. Great social life. She randomly said well if I die how will you know if you don’t call me more and he said he would call her more (he called every two days as it was). We were discussing how she probably felt a bit lonely and how we would make more of an effort to contact her daily. She died suddenly two days later.

My FIL lives 50 miles away from us. He met his now girlfriend on a coach trip holiday to Scotland (5 hour drive). It so happens that she lives in the town myself & DH live in, and At the time, I worked with her.

We live on an island. My 15 year old son went to London to visit his brothers, something he does two or three times a year. He decided to do some shopping on Oxford St. He walked past a good friend from his (island) school, he didn’t realise till the guy said ‘hi’.

Mine are not big events but occasionally little things happen to me which means things work out better.

For example one day this week I was buying lunch for my boss in pret, she likes a certain hot food item but they only had an alternative in stock so I picked it up. The guy on the till was brand new, and took ages to ring everything up. It took so long that another staff member came out with a big pile of my boss’ preferred item! So I swapped, and I would’ve missed it if I’d not got the trainee serving me.

Another time it had been a hard day at work and a colleague spontaneously asked if I wanted a drink afterwards to decompress. I accepted, and we were out for a few hours - when I got to the station to go home it turned out there has been hideous delays during rush hour and things had only just gotten back to normal. A few trains had even been stranded between stations. I would’ve got caught up in it all if I had left at the normal time and not gone for that drink.

Another time I was on a late train home which had quite a few drunk people on. A clearly inebriated person sat next to me and promptly fell asleep. A few minutes into the journey and a couple standing by the doors were looking at the route map getting confused about which stop to get off at to change for another line. As i know the line well I got out of my seat to help them. Mere seconds later, the drunk person in the seat next to me woke up and promptly threw up all over my seat - where I had been sitting moments before!!

It’s all very small stuff and I’m not sure I believe in any outsider forces as such, but sometimes things line up very well and it feels like I have luck on my side.

My cousin is a teaching assistant at the school attended by my SIL’s husband’s grandson.

For families who don’t move far from their place of birth, this would be not a coincidence at all. However:

I am from Nottingham (as is my cousin)
My husband and SIL are from West Sussex
SIL’s husband is from Essex
SIL’s husband’s grandchildren and my cousin live in a completely different county.