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Lol I just added to this thread, went to the loo, and came back into the living room to another coincidence!

Two of my friends collect vintage Ladybird books and yesterday we were having a chatter on social media about what books they've got. It made me feel nostalgic about them, so I was on eBay and took a look at what they've got. Lots. I saw a book called "The Little Red Hen" which made me smile because I used to keep little red hens :)

I mentioned this to my other half in general conversation earlier today. He knows how much I loved my hens.

Then later, retweeted into my twitter timeline by a friend (not one of the collector friends) was a tweet about real life locations of Ladybird Book covers - and this one was the village location of The Little Red Hen!

Nice coincidence.

Tonight I'm on this forum, I write some posts, I go to the loo, then I come back downstairs and husband mentions he has a tweet on his timeline about the chicken Ladybird book I had mentioned. One of his friends (not mine) had retweeted it onto his timeline :)
 
For those of you interested in vintage Ladybird books who are on Twitter, if you look up #RobertLumley you'll see some lovely Ladybird illustration tweets, incl the latest one about The Little Red Hen location.
 
And my friends tell me that tonight on "Call The Midwife" was a "Peter and Jane" Ladybird book! :p
 
A couple of years ago, I was in the lake district one day with my parents. I only live about an hour from the lakes whereas my parents live about a 5hr drive from there. They were visiting me for a couple of days so we decided to go up there for one of the days. We went for a nice little stroll around some back roads and happened to almost bump in to someone who my parents live very close to. Although this woman is always out up the shops etc for a good ole gossip in their hometown, my parents very rarely bump in to her down there, despite my parents always out and about too. They're quite happy about that really as the woman is a talker and will chat to you for decades. My poor parents couldn't get away from her so ended up having to chat for quite a while. She was up north with her husband for a couple of days too. Just typical they bumped in to each other 5 hrs from home, walking on the same path.

I've also got what I feel is a major life-changing coincidence which I will share once I've reached the end of this thread.
 
I mentioned elsewhere that my oldest, best and most beloved friend and I are back in touch again after a huge number of years. Now I am seeing his name all over the place at work - I'll deal with someone with one of his names and then the next person I deal with has his other one; I'll need to look someone else up and guess what - they have his name. Someone gives me some paperwork and it's his name again. It's very, very odd.
 
I mentioned elsewhere that my oldest, best and most beloved friend and I are back in touch again after a huge number of years. Now I am seeing his name all over the place at work - I'll deal with someone with one of his names and then the next person I deal with has his other one; I'll need to look someone else up and guess what - they have his name. Someone gives me some paperwork and it's his name again. It's very, very odd.

 
A couple of years ago, I was in the lake district one day with my parents. I only live about an hour from the lakes whereas my parents live about a 5hr drive from there. They were visiting me for a couple of days so we decided to go up there for one of the days. We went for a nice little stroll around some back roads and happened to almost bump in to someone who my parents live very close to. Although this woman is always out up the shops etc for a good ole gossip in their hometown, my parents very rarely bump in to her down there, despite my parents always out and about too. They're quite happy about that really as the woman is a talker and will chat to you for decades. My poor parents couldn't get away from her so ended up having to chat for quite a while. She was up north with her husband for a couple of days too. Just typical they bumped in to each other 5 hrs from home, walking on the same path.

I've also got what I feel is a major life-changing coincidence which I will share once I've reached the end of this thread.

I went walking up on the high moor (North York Moors, 554 square miles) on a path I'd never walked before, when who should walk towards me but a good friend and her son. We all live just inside the NYM boundary, and we all like walking, so not as totally mindblowing as your co incidence, but there's an awful lot of moor to walk, and we happened to be walking the same path.
 
Last month, my younger brother, seeing the state of my Blackberry (all the buttons have come away so I can't alter anything that isn't altered via the keypad) kindly gave me a replacement. He explained that his son had given it to him when he (the son) had upgraded.
However, my brother had become accustomed to his 'slidey' new phone and didn't use it. So I ended up with it.

There was no SIM card in it, but there was a list of phone numbers in the memory. And I was browsing through them when I noticed a rather unusual name alongside one. It was a Polish name.

Now, one of my granddaughters is a female rugby player, and she had just started with a new team. in this team is a Polish girl with the same unusual name.

So I asked her about it. She remembered I had said that the phone originated from one of by brother's sons. And this son was a nightclub bouncer. it turns out that this girl is also a nightclub bouncer and general security person.

They knew each other from this occupation.

'Six degrees of separation ?'

INT21.
 
This is a long one I'm afraid but I just had to share because it changed my life and the lives of my parents. So I apologize in advance lol.

In 2007, I'd just come out of a very bad relationship and was wondering what on earth I was going to do with my life. I suppose you could say I was feeling a bit lost. I was in my mid 20's and back home living with my parents.

Later that year I decided to sign up on a dating website. It was called dating-agency.com if I remember right. Certainly not a popular one, nor one that had been advertised on TV or anything. Just a small random one I found when searching online. Online dating was not something I had ever considered before but decided to try anyway. It wasn't going very well so I thought about closing my account.

My parents always went out on NYE but this year (2007) they didn't because my Mum had the flu, so we all stayed in. At exactly 11.50pm (I could never forget the time), a very handsome looking guy showed some interest on my profile. I looked at his profile and showed some interest back. We got chatting until midnight. We messaged each other a lot in the new year and met up. We got on very well and have been together ever since. We have so much in common and are true soulmates. I feel like I have always known him and we can often read each other's minds - I'm sure there must be a bit of telepathic communication going on between us at times.
We would never have met if it weren't for that website as we lived 158 miles apart. But he was getting ready to close his account too as he was having no luck on it either. I'm sure fate had something to do with it.

Then around 2015-2016 we were toying with the idea of my parents moving up to live with us ( we now live in Yorkshire) as we all get on very well and my brother had moved up north a short while back too so as you can imagine, my parents missed both their children and longed to be closer especially as my Mum and I have a serious health condition. As our house is worth more than we paid for it, we thought about building an extension on the side so my parents could live in one half of the house and we could live in the other. Saves a fortune on bills :twothumbs:

My Mum was very keen on the idea but my Dad put his foot down and said no way was he moving up north - he was very happy down south. Well something happened in 2017-2018 that had my Dad desperate to move away from the area they lived in. The crime rates went up and I mean they went up, especially crimes by teenagers with nothing to do - it was happening all over the very large town they lived in!! And to top it all off, my poor parents were getting harassed by a group of 12-16 year old kids. After a few months of them suffering with that and the police not doing much about it, my Dad had had enough and decided to move up north. I can't help but feel that it was all down to fate, that the kids doing that happened at the right time as now my Dad is up north, he absolutely loves it and would never move back down south.

My parents needed a big enough house for all their belongings but everything showing up for rent around here was out of their price range or too small a house. But right after what happened with those kids, the perfect house showed up for my parents. The right size and the right price and it couldn't have been in a better area. Such a quiet area and a 1 min walk from my partners parents house. It really couldn't have worked out any better!! And this year they'll be moving in to the extension when it's finished. My partner and I have had had so much bad luck but the extension - everything has been going to plan and falling in to place for it. In essence, we have been very lucky. We were given the right people to do the job from start of the planning permission to the builders as none of them have been jobsworths like a lot of people we know who have had similar have had to deal with. So there you have it, I really do feel that it was all meant to be and it all fell in to place.

And just to top it all off with another little coincidence if you're still reading up to this point haha. My Dad (when he lived down south) used to visit his local pub every week for a pint, usually after work but after a while the pub closed down and has now been turned in to flats. When my parents moved up to their new house in a small town up north, he visited his local pub and who should be in there working behind the bar??? Only the same landlady from the pub down south. She was there for a few months but has left now. Also on one of the afternoons that my Dad visited the pub (he's now retired) he got chatting to a guy in there. Turns out he was my partners best friend from years ago!!

I really can't help but think that me and my parents lives have turned out just the way they were meant to. I like to think coincidences happen to show us we are on the right track. Just realised too that my Mum's maiden name resembles where they live now too.
 
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This is a long one I'm afraid but I just had to share because it changed my life and the lives of my parents. So I apologize in advance lol.

In 2007, I'd just come out of a very bad relationship and was wondering what on earth I was going to do with my life. I suppose you could say I was feeling a bit lost. I was in my mid 20's and back home living with my parents.

Later that year I decided to sign up on a dating website. It was called dating-agency.com if I remember right. Certainly not a popular one, nor one that had been advertised on TV or anything. Just a small random one I found when searching online. Online dating was not something I had ever considered before but decided to try anyway. It wasn't going very well so I thought about closing my account.

My parents always went out on NYE but this year (2007) they didn't because my Mum had the flu, so we all stayed in. At exactly 11.50pm (I could never forget the time), a very handsome looking guy showed some interest on my profile. I looked at his profile and showed some interest back. We got chatting until midnight. We messaged each other a lot in the new year and met up. We got on very well and have been together ever since. We have so much in common and are true soulmates. I feel like I have always known him and we can often read each other's minds - I'm sure there must be a bit of telepathic communication going on between us at times.
We would never have met if it weren't for that website as we lived 158 miles apart. But he was getting ready to close his account too as he was having no luck on it either. I'm sure fate had something to do with it.

Then around 2015-2016 we were toying with the idea of my parents moving up to live with us ( we now live in Yorkshire) as we all get on very well and my brother had moved up north a short while back too so as you can imagine, my parents missed both their children and longed to be closer especially as my Mum and I have a serious health condition. As our house is worth more than we paid for it, we thought about building an extension on the side so my parents could live in one half of the house and we could live in the other. Saves a fortune on bills :twothumbs:

My Mum was very keen on the idea but my Dad put his foot down and said no way was he moving up north - he was very happy down south. Well something happened in 2017-2018 that had my Dad desperate to move away from the area they lived in. The crime rates went up and I mean they went up, especially crimes by teenagers with nothing to do - it was happening all over the very large town they lived in!! And to top it all off, my poor parents were getting harassed by a group of 12-16 year old kids. After a few months of them suffering with that and the police not doing much about it, my Dad had had enough and decided to move up north. I can't help but feel that it was all down to fate, that the kids doing that happened at the right time as now my Dad is up north, he absolutely loves it and would never move back down south.

My parents needed a big enough house for all their belongings but everything showing up for rent around here was out of their price range or too small a house. But right after what happened with those kids, the perfect house showed up for my parents. The right size and the right price and it couldn't have been in a better area. Such a quiet area and a 1 min walk from my partners parents house. It really couldn't have worked out any better!! And this year they'll be moving in to the extension when it's finished. My partner and I have had had so much bad luck but the extension - everything has been going to plan and falling in to place for it. In essence, we have been very lucky. We were given the right people to do the job from start of the planning permission to the builders as none of them have been jobsworths like a lot of people we know who have had similar have had to deal with. So there you have it, I really do feel that it was all meant to be and it all fell in to place.

And just to top it all off with another little coincidence if you're still reading up to this point haha. My Dad (when he lived down south) used to visit his local pub every week for a pint, usually after work but after a while the pub closed down and has now been turned in to flats. When my parents moved up to their new house in a small town up north, he visited his local pub and who should be in there working behind the bar??? Only the same landlady from the pub down south. She was there for a few months but has left now. Also on one of the afternoons that my Dad visited the pub (he's now retired) he got chatting to a guy in there. Turns out he was my partners best friend from years ago!!

I really can't help but think that me and my parents lives have turned out just the way they were meant to. I like to think coincidences happen to show us we are on the right track. Just realised too that my Mum's maiden name resembles where they live now too.
I think you are exactly right. In fact I suspect that these patterns, coincidences, etc., are just the surface indications of hidden currents that are always guiding our lives -- if we weren't convinced that we are "in charge of our destiny" we would notice them more. I have certainly had similar happenings in my life. I wonder how many others in Forteanspace would say likewise?
 
Another one starting with online dating, now concentrate its an odd one.
2008 Me, out of a bad relationship, I'm in Lancashire
Dating Online I meet...
Engineer from Manchester (J) great guy, intelligent, smart
Lawguy from Merseyside dull not my type.

Chose Lawguy as I was still a bit scared from bad relationship
Date Lawguy late 2008, dump Lawguy month later

Meanwhile also late 2008
J is 'kind of' dating a girl he works with she's from Newcastle
I say 'kind of' as girl was already playing hard to get...

Early 2009 Me, finally meet J love at first sight
Married 2010
Happily ever after until he went for a long sleep early 2014 (cancer)


Me, early 2015 decide I need to at least explore speaking to the opposite sex again, joins dating site and meet...
Engineer from Africa (D) living down south but visiting up north...

We meet and realise D has very similar morals and political views to J, also very very similar career and other stuffs
2nd date I show D a photo of J taken a few months before I met him late 2008.
"I know him...I met him...the night of that photo, in Newcastle"

So turns out D dumped his girlfriend that night late 2008, in Newcastle, at a works do with guys from all over the country, as he thought she was cheating.
We looked up the girl, she was a friend of J on Facebook, she was the girl J had been 'kind of' dating.
AT THE SAME TIME.
And now here he was with his love rivals wife and widow
We laughed about a potential love triangle with a ghost.
What are the chances of a guy from Manchester and Down south dating the same girl from Newcastle at the same time and then both randomly meeting me via dating sites.

Anyway Photon J must be happy as I'll be marrying D soonish and he hasn't done anything spectral to show his displeasure. I'm pretty sure it was all meant to be, as it hasn't stopped there.


Don't forget the Lawguy...
The Lawguy popped back up just after I met D, with another 30 or so coincidences....but that's a whole different story which cannot yet be told...none of which would have happened if any of the above had mis-timed.

Oh yeah and also D's family, all the females have my name, all 7 of us...
 
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Today I was at a hospital and met an old man and his wife whom I had not seen for seven years.
I used to work with him but he is now retired.
I talked with him for a bit and reminisced, whilst his wife went to another room.
He was wearing a distinctive navy blue and grey striped coat, and flat cap. He had a walking stick.
We talked for five minutes then he left to meet his wife.

About half an hour later I was walking out of the hospital and saw them some 20 metres ahead of me on the path.
I caught them up, and said someting along the lines of "Funny to meet you again."
Except it was not them!
The man was the same height and build and had the same distinctive navy blue and grey striped coat and flat cap, and walking stick.
I realised my error, smiled anyway, and walked off as I heard them muttering to themselves about "Not sure who he was but he seemed nice enough....Do you think he was the ambulance driver?....I am not sure but I recognise his face from somewhere....."
 
I think you are exactly right. In fact I suspect that these patterns, coincidences, etc., are just the surface indications of hidden currents that are always guiding our lives -- if we weren't convinced that we are "in charge of our destiny" we would notice them more. I have certainly had similar happenings in my life. I wonder how many others in Forteanspace would say likewise?
I think we are in charge of our destiny in the moral choices we make, but we get a helping hand in life from G-D.
This happens every day but is not always apparent to us.
 
I think we are in charge of our destiny in the moral choices we make, but we get a helping hand in life from G-D.
This happens every day but is not always apparent to us.
"Coincidences" aren't really that strange, then!
 
My "co-ordinated incidences" or "synchronicities" or "coincidences" have always usually been connected with numbers, for example I might be sitting reading a newspaper item that says " fire broke out today on the 10th floor of a 21-floor tower block", and at that precise instant I hear the numbers 10 and 21 come out of the TV in some unrelated connection, for example if it's a triathlon the commentator says "The two leaders are competitors 10 and 21", and I look up in bewilderment thinking "I can't believe that just happened!"..:)
 
I think we are in charge of our destiny in the moral choices we make, but we get a helping hand in life from G-D.
This happens every day but is not always apparent to us.

Right, Jesus said "My Father is always working" (John 5:17)
 
Yes and the big question is whether things are just random genuine coincidences, or whether there are "cosmic jokers" out there in another dimension or wherever, who are observing the human race and arranging the coincidences to prank us or to let us know they're there..:)

PS- in my post #496 I mentioned a coincidence involving the 10th floor of a tower block.
Well guess what?- the day after posting it I was surfing the TV channels and happened to randomly see a scene in an Owen Wilson film where the mayor walks into a hotel and asks the receptionist "Where are my daughters?"
"On the 10th floor" replied the receptionist..:)
 
20 years ago my sister and I decided to give my Dad a surprise 70th Birthday present. We saved and saved then managed to take him for lunch on the Orient Express as he was a steam train fanatic. To cut a very long story short when we revealed to him where we were going he looked stunned and then smiled wistfully telling us he remembered seeing the Orient Express in London as a young child when he was with my Grandfather ( worked on the railways). He said he could see famous people getting off the train and told my Grandfather he would love to go on that train but was told sadly 'people like us don't go on trains like that'. Which was what he kept saying for about 5 mins after we revealed the surprise he was quite shocked.

Anyway, we were booked into a Dining Car named 'Ibis' all the carriages had different names painted on them. Dad and I had our photo taken on the platform with 'Ibis' behind us. We had the best family day of our lives and would highly recommend.
Fast forward about 8 years later. I am continuing with our family tree started by my Dad who was by then ailing and I was determined to dig out as many ancestors I could. There were one or two odd names along with the usual very common ones. It was then that I discovered that my Paternal Great Grandfather had a brother who had a daughter whose first 2 names were...'Ibis Orient' (and Dads surname). Weird name. Never come across anything like that before and the coincidence amazed us all.
 
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I wonder if part of the 'listening to music on the radio, thinking of another song and then that's played immediately' is something to do with DJs mixing songs with similar BPM (beats per minute) so that there's no abrupt jarring of 'tone'. Because the BPMS are similar, the song that is actually playing makes you think of another song with a similar tone and tempo and that is the one that the DJ plays because it mixes in so nicely?

Apologies for any incorrect use of terminology, stretching my brain back to the time when my brother was a DJ at a university radio station.
 
I wonder if part of the 'listening to music on the radio, thinking of another song and then that's played immediately' is something to do with DJs mixing songs with similar BPM (beats per minute) so that there's no abrupt jarring of 'tone'. Because the BPMS are similar, the song that is actually playing makes you think of another song with a similar tone and tempo and that is the one that the DJ plays because it mixes in so nicely?

Apologies for any incorrect use of terminology, stretching my brain back to the time when my brother was a DJ at a university radio station.
That's an ingenious idea -- could explain some cases.
 
Yes good point never thought of it like that. However not in my experiences as far as I am aware.
 
I mentioned elsewhere that my oldest, best and most beloved friend and I are back in touch again after a huge number of years. Now I am seeing his name all over the place at work - I'll deal with someone with one of his names and then the next person I deal with has his other one; I'll need to look someone else up and guess what - they have his name. Someone gives me some paperwork and it's his name again. It's very, very odd.
In the strange position of replying to myself here, but the other day, I opened some paperwork where the first person had his first name and the next had mine. And what's weirder is that not only is my first name not all that common, it was actually the abbreviated version of it, which is what my friend always uses.
 
This morning I had a feeling that I should ring my youngest daughter's inlaws to see if they were going to Probus although I never have before, but the daughter who lived with me persuaded me not to.
Went to Probus and the lady arrived rather late.
I asked how she was and she said she wasn't feeling well, but would be ok.
My other friend and I didn't think she was and she finally agreed to let us take her home.
Her husband is away but she has one son at home, but couldn't seem to find her mobile and couldn't remember the number.
I rang my daughter at work and she rang the son at home and also her husband who doesn't work Mondays, so he was able to go around and help get his mother to hospital.
My daughter rang tonight to say her mother in law is in hospital and has had a mild heart attack .
When I rang to tell my friend she said her petrol had been low this morning but had had a feeling she should fill up before she went to Probus
which was lucky as we took her home in my friend's car as she would not have fitted in the seat belt of my small car.
 
This morning I had a feeling that I should ring my youngest daughter's inlaws to see if they were going to Probus although I never have before, but the daughter who lived with me persuaded me not to.
Went to Probus and the lady arrived rather late.
I asked how she was and she said she wasn't feeling well, but would be ok.
My other friend and I didn't think she was and she finally agreed to let us take her home.
Her husband is away but she has one son at home, but couldn't seem to find her mobile and couldn't remember the number.
I rang my daughter at work and she rang the son at home and also her husband who doesn't work Mondays, so he was able to go around and help get his mother to hospital.
My daughter rang tonight to say her mother in law is in hospital and has had a mild heart attack .
When I rang to tell my friend she said her petrol had been low this morning but had had a feeling she should fill up before she went to Probus
which was lucky as we took her home in my friend's car as she would not have fitted in the seat belt of my small car.
Is your friend a naturally intuitive person? It sounds like that.
 
I occasionally visit a cafe on Sandwich Street near King's Cross (London) as it's only a 5 minute walk from my Work place. On the way down I pass a small German Lutheran chapel with a frontage no wider than a normal door and it has always intrigued me. Never been inside it as it's only open on selected Sundays. Through curiosity and church newsletters, I discovered that the chapel is a small offshoot of the main Lutheran Congregation that meet in St. Albans (where my parents used to drag us as kids).
When my Mother died 3 years ago, I went through all the papers of both parents and I found my Baptism certificate. Yep, 55 years ago I was baptised in the Chapel on Sandwich Street. How is it my parents never once mentioned I had a London connection ?
 
I occasionally visit a cafe on Sandwich Street near King's Cross (London) as it's only a 5 minute walk from my Work place. On the way down I pass a small German Lutheran chapel with a frontage no wider than a normal door and it has always intrigued me. Never been inside it as it's only open on selected Sundays. Through curiosity and church newsletters, I discovered that the chapel is a small offshoot of the main Lutheran Congregation that meet in St. Albans (where my parents used to drag us as kids).
When my Mother died 3 years ago, I went through all the papers of both parents and I found my Baptism certificate. Yep, 55 years ago I was baptised in the Chapel on Sandwich Street. How is it my parents never once mentioned I had a London connection ?
It is a small world, all right. Somewhat similar story involving a chapel: back in 1996 I was having a physical breakdown following a long period of stress, and unable to get a job. So I started doing voluntary research work at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. The hospital library was situated a few minute's walk away in a converted chapel, and I spent some time there looking up research reports on obesity. Soon after my condition deteriorated and I had to leave (and soon after that the private organisation funding the research withdrew its support anyway).
Years later, recovered and now married, I went online in 2010 trying to track down my roots (father's name and origin -- wartime romance, wife wouldn't agree to divorce, all records lost etc.), and eventually learned that he was the son of Lithuanian immigrants. I sent for his birth certificate and found that he had been born in Planet Street, Stepney. That street had been demolished during redevelopment in the 1960s, but looking up old maps I found he had been born only a couple of hundred metres from that old chapel. My wife had often visited an aunt in the East End during the 50s and it turned out she had lived at the next road off Planet Street.
 
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