When I was a kid, for a summer we (mum, and I, no idea what my sister and dad were doing) stayed on a friends farm and looked after their animals including a native pony stallion of a fairly rare breed, and his two wives and their previous years offspring.
The stallion was rideable and actually as unstalliony as it gets, a total gentleman and so I hacked him out and messed about in the field with him a lot. End of the summer came and he and his wives went home, him back to the island he came from and his wives to a farm to bake their new babies.
This was around 30 years ago.
Last year I picked up a pony book, written for kids and set on the island these ponies come from. The book is fiction, but based on real life, particularly the heritage of the ponies.
Well... as I read the book, certain things seem familiar about the main protagonists pony, a stallion... and there in the back of the book is a photo... yep, its 'my' pony from that summer all those years ago!
I emailed the author and showed her some photos and we had a lovely chat about the life he'd gone on to lead.
One from my childhood - some friends had a barbie camping set, I absolutely coveted this thing, but not the sort of thing our mother would buy us in a million years - there was a tent, fold out tables and chairs, a jeep... loads of stuff.
A year or so later going round charity shops in town (pretty big town) with mother, on the hunt for pony books probably, I came across a barbie camping set - bought it with my pocket money... took it home.
Got it out and sniffed it... and it smelt like my friends home, not bad or anything just 'their smell'... Told mother who said i was ridiculous, in a town that big with that many charity shops what are the chances I've bought my friends old toy... She rang them probably as I was being irritating by this point... yes, it was theirs! :D
As an adult, I decided to take up spinning and I went to a big fibre show, think Crufts .. but for wool. I went with my dad who was fascinated by it all, and we talked about how as a really little kid, 2 years old, I'd been captivated by spinning wheels, drop spindles and so on, when we'd visited a friend of my late mothers. I thought she was a good witch from a fairytale, she was a rather ethereal kind of person... Wasn't it a shame we hadn't seen them in years...
Turn away from the stand we were looking at... and there she is approaching the stand, recognised us both immediately despite not having seen me or my father in 35+ years... To bump into her at an exhibition with thousands of people across a big site... amazing! She helped me buy my first spinning wheel and we are still in touch now.
Not mine but a friends... Friend A goes on holiday round the world gap year type thing, whilst in Sydney, he's waiting for a bus... when someone calls his name... it is the younger brother of his late best mate, they haven't seen each other in a few years since best mate died so haven't been in touch... on a trip with his family!