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Coincidences

I know this is purely down to that thing - you know, when you are involved in something and suddenly everything you read or watch seems to have references to it because it's what you are aware of. It's got a name but I can't remember it and I'm sure someone will come along with it in a minute, so...

I've been writing about the Isle of Wight, randomly, as I've never been there. Suddenly, almost every page I light on on the internet, even very disconnected ones, seem to be referencing the Isle of Wight. I just came over here, and saw that Creepy Villages was on the What's New page, so I popped on there and - yep, Isle of Wight. Mumsnet, casually reading through and the page 'Strange places' was there, and, again, the Isle of Wight...

I think that mostly goes to prove the the Isle of Wight is a weird place.
 
Spent the last few days with someone close who was dying.
We agreed that when the time came they would have the morphine and fall asleep and I'd stay until it was over.
So no tears or panic, just calm and reassurance.

This went well and only after I saw they'd died did I break down.

Here's the coincidence: we purposefully did not say goodbye before they died.
So I did it afterwards, tearfully.

The life support machines still did occasional random bleeps.

When it was time for me to go I said a last goodbye and opened the door to leave, and heard a loud BEEP-BEEP.
Like they were driving away.

OK, my darling, I get it. You had the last word.
 
escargot said:
Spent the last few days with someone close who was dying.
We agreed that when the time came they would have the morphine and fall asleep and I'd stay until it was over.
So no tears or panic, just calm and reassurance.

This went well and only after I saw they'd died did I break down.

Here's the coincidence: we purposefully did not say goodbye before they died.
So I did it afterwards, tearfully.

The life support machines still did occasional random bleeps.

When it was time for me to go I said a last goodbye and opened the door to leave, and heard a loud BEEP-BEEP.
Like they were driving away.

OK, my darling, I get it. You had the last word.
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Sorry for your loss Scargy. You were a good friend. A wonderful goodbye story
 
escargot said:
Spent the last few days with someone close who was dying.
We agreed that when the time came they would have the morphine and fall asleep and I'd stay until it was over.
So no tears or panic, just calm and reassurance.

This went well and only after I saw they'd died did I break down.

Here's the coincidence: we purposefully did not say goodbye before they died.
So I did it afterwards, tearfully.

The life support machines still did occasional random bleeps.

When it was time for me to go I said a last goodbye and opened the door to leave, and heard a loud BEEP-BEEP.
Like they were driving away.

OK, my darling, I get it. You had the last word.
Click to expand...

Difficult to lose a loved one. You were there until the end. My condolences, take care.
 
On the "People Who Feel Wrong" thread, I mentioned one of my weak links - a chap I encounter on my way to work. Over the last couple of weeks he acquired a bicycle, a sit-up-and-beg-one, and so we pass on two wheels with a cheery "Morning!" Today I encountered him at a point where the cut-through narrows, and we both had to slow down to cross a speed bump - at which point he said to me, rather out of the blue, "Are you a teacher?"
"No, but I used to be," was my reply. Either it's because he works in a school and assumes everybody else does, or I still have THE LOOK about me after more than 20 years!
 
The last thing I did online last night was on my own computer, reading about the city of Aden in Yemen.

This morning the first work call I took on my work computer was from a customer called Mrs Aden.
 
bugmum said:
On the "People Who Feel Wrong" thread, I mentioned one of my weak links - a chap I encounter on my way to work. Over the last couple of weeks he acquired a bicycle, a sit-up-and-beg-one, and so we pass on two wheels with a cheery "Morning!" Today I encountered him at a point where the cut-through narrows, and we both had to slow down to cross a speed bump - at which point he said to me, rather out of the blue, "Are you a teacher?"
"No, but I used to be," was my reply. Either it's because he works in a school and assumes everybody else does, or I still have THE LOOK about me after more than 20 years!
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Do you think you might have taught him? I used to work in a school and even now sometimes get puzzled people, who are now in their twenties/thirties coming up to me behind the till and asking if I used to work in A Certain School, because they recognise me.
 
bugmum said:
or I still have THE LOOK about me after more than 20 years!
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Er, well to be fair....
M R.jpg
 
catseye said:
Do you think you might have taught him? I used to work in a school and even now sometimes get puzzled people, who are now in their twenties/thirties coming up to me behind the till and asking if I used to work in A Certain School, because they recognise me.
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No, because he's a teacher at our local school. I sneakily looked him up and didn't recognise the name, which is pretty distinctive. Although I did teach in Devon for a few years, it was out in the countryside so I haven't run into any of them as far as I know.
 
catseye said:
I know this is purely down to that thing - you know, when you are involved in something and suddenly everything you read or watch seems to have references to it because it's what you are aware of. It's got a name but I can't remember it and I'm sure someone will come along with it in a minute, so...
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Synchronicity, maybe?
 
catseye said:
No, it's something like Primacy Effect (only obviously not that, because that means remembering the first thing you saw better than other things), but I'm fairly sure it's an Effect of some kind.
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Priming?
 
Tench said:
Priming?
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I'm sure there's an actual term for it, but it's not that either, I don't think... am I making it up? I'm absolutely certain I've seen it called the something effect..?
 
Ah, I think I may have found it!

'
Frequency illusion, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or frequency bias, is a cognitive bias referring to the tendency to notice something more often after noticing it for the first time, leading to the belief that it has an increased frequency of occurrence.'

It was the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon I was thinking of - I knew the term! But also Frequency Bias.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
 
My wife and I were talking a couple of days ago about the Great Lakes in the US/Canada and how it is difficult to imagine how big they are.

As I have an interest in things nautical, I mentioned that they can have very severe weather and told her about the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, which was over 700 feet long and sank in 1975 with all hands in Lake Superior. The next day I sat down at my computer and put the radio on to hear 'The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' playing which I later found they were playing as a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot who had passed away.
 
Giant R said:
My wife and I were talking a couple of days ago about the Great Lakes in the US/Canada and how it is difficult to imagine how big they are.

As I have an interest in things nautical, I mentioned that they can have very severe weather and told her about the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, which was over 700 feet long and sank in 1975 with all hands in Lake Superior. The next day I sat down at my computer and put the radio on to hear 'The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' playing which I later found they were playing as a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot who had passed away.
Click to expand...
We were talking about that particular song last night in my yoga class. Because of Gordon Lightfoot's death. Several of us did not realize that the song came out only a year after the incident. We thought that it was something that'd happened decades before.

I have not seen Lake Superior. My yoga instructor said that it can turn dark and nasty very quickly.

I live closest to Lake Erie and only a few hours drive from lakes Huron and Ontario.
 
brownmane said:
We were talking about that particular song last night in my yoga class. Because of Gordon Lightfoot's death. Several of us did not realize that the song came out only a year after the incident. We thought that it was something that'd happened decades before.

I have not seen Lake Superior. My yoga instructor said that it can turn dark and nasty very quickly.

I live closest to Lake Erie and only a few hours drive from lakes Huron and Ontario.
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Me too, I always imagined the Gordon Lightfoot song was his own take of a much earlier folk song.
 
Giant R said:
My wife and I were talking a couple of days ago about the Great Lakes in the US/Canada and how it is difficult to imagine how big they are.

As I have an interest in things nautical, I mentioned that they can have very severe weather and told her about the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, which was over 700 feet long and sank in 1975 with all hands in Lake Superior. The next day I sat down at my computer and put the radio on to hear 'The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' playing which I later found they were playing as a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot who had passed away.
Click to expand...
Another interesting (well to me:)) thing I found when I was looking up the ship was that it was launched on the day I was born.
 
Giant R said:
As I have an interest in things nautical, I mentioned that they can have very severe weather and told her about the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, which was over 700 feet long and sank in 1975 with all hands in Lake Superior. The next day I sat down at my computer and put the radio on to hear 'The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' playing which I later found they were playing as a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot who had passed away.
Click to expand...
Another Gordon Lightfoot coincidence: Sunday I was idly ruminating like a good Fortean and for the first time in years thought of the song "The Edmund Fitzgerald." It reminded me of a line I had always loved from another song by the same singer/song writer, but it had been so long since I'd thought of him I couldn't recall his name or the name of the song. The line, in a song full of beautiful nature imagery, is "on the beds where trees are born." It's from "Seven Island Suite." After learning he'd died, I looked up the lyrics:
https://gordonlightfoot.com/Lyrics/SevenIslandSuite.txt
 
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Giant R said:
My wife and I were talking a couple of days ago about the Great Lakes in the US/Canada and how it is difficult to imagine how big they are.

As I have an interest in things nautical, I mentioned that they can have very severe weather and told her about the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, which was over 700 feet long and sank in 1975 with all hands in Lake Superior. The next day I sat down at my computer and put the radio on to hear 'The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' playing which I later found they were playing as a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot who had passed away.
Click to expand...

I unloaded many of the iron ore carriers. The Edmond Fitzgerald sank the year before I started.

Lake Michigan is relatively small and shallow and gets almost no tide at all because its oriented more north/ south. But it has some odd effects because cold air pours down the warm lake in the autumn and can dump huge amounts of snow on Chicago and the region. Also sometimes a seiche occurs which can cause devastation to ships in ports. This is usually caused by a fast moving low pressure area moving across the north end of the lake. The low pressure sucks water to the north and then when it moves off the water comes pouring down to the south end of the lake.
 
mummyknave said:
I unloaded many of the iron ore carriers. The Edmond Fitzgerald sank the year before I started.

Lake Michigan is relatively small and shallow and gets almost no tide at all because its oriented more north/ south. But it has some odd effects because cold air pours down the warm lake in the autumn and can dump huge amounts of snow on Chicago and the region. Also sometimes a seiche occurs which can cause devastation to ships in ports. This is usually caused by a fast moving low pressure area moving across the north end of the lake. The low pressure sucks water to the north and then when it moves off the water comes pouring down to the south end of the lake.
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Bolding, mine. That's a new word I've never heard. Interesting weather effect.
 
Today I went to Conwy in North Wales for a mooch around with a certain poster of this parish.

Arrived unfashionably early and strolled along the still-deserted Quay, where I spotted a snail on the ground.
Strangely, the snail had a blob of blue paint on its shell.

Not wishing my little sibling to be crushed underfoot I picked it up and carried it to a patch of weeds against a wall.

Tried to take a photo - you don't see a woaded-up mollusc every day - but the leaf it was on flipped over and Snaily disappeared from sight.

I shrugged, continued my quest for a nice cup of tea and a bun and soon forgot about the snail.

Hours later after seeing off my friends I popped into a Conwy church and chatted with a visitor guide.

Told him I'd arrived so early the only other visitor had been a snail with paint on its shell, the same colour as I could see on his hands.

'Oooh!' he said, 'I saw that snail! It was on some pipes we'd brought over to carry on the repairs to a boat.
I meant to pick it up and put it safe but we were busy painting and I forgot. Felt quite ashamed when I remembered.'

It was the same snail, that'd arrived on the metal pipes and been splashed with paint, and ended up on the Quay needing rescue.

Didn't snap the snail but there's a photo of the guide' s painty hand.
Weird, eh.
 

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The blue paint on the snail came from work on a ship conversion.

Painty-Man advised me to look for 'converting a naval tender' on YouTube where I found an entire channel on it, featuring Painty-Man himself volunteering.

The vessel is a former RN supply ship being turned into a floating clinic for use in Madagascar. Its small size and draught mean it will be able to sail up rivers to reach remote communities.

It's so far moved between Conwy, Bangor and Acton Bridge (in Cheshire) depending on the work requirements.


This is a little summary Video of the journey of Island Reach from December 2021 to July 2022.

This ex-naval supply ship was purchased by YWAM Switzerland in December last year and sailed to Conwy from Greenock. Many jobs could be completed at Conwy Harbor thanks to the efforts of many volunteers and sponsors.

The ship has now moved to Acton Bridge, where we found a suitable location for carrying out the major steel fabrication for the new accommodation on the fore deck and alterations to the main hold.

Once converted, it will be sent to Madagascar to serve the medical needs of the nation. The plans for conversion already exist, as three similar-type vessels have already been converted by Vine Trust in Scotland and are deployed in the Amazon and Africa.

The converted holds will house the dental and ophthalmic suits, plus a GP and pharmacy facility.

For more information, visit www.ywamships.ch
Follow this Project on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ywamshipsCH/
Follow this Project on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ywam_ships/
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If only we had a poster who knew all about ships and sailing. Someone like that'd LOVE this. ;)
 
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