Cambridge Coincidences Collection

In 1987 my wife and I purchased a small property in a very Spanish village - Guardamar del Segura - from an English couple who introduced us to some English ex-pat friends living about 7 kilometres away in Torrevieja. Around about 1995 my wife called me from the garden telling me that my cousin's husband was on the telephone. As, sadly, we did not have regular contact apart from Christmas cards I suspected the worst and told him so. He told me not to worry, he was only ringing to tell me he had been to our Spanish property though we had never told them of the purchase. He explained that they had gone to Torrevieja and in conversation with ex-pat friends they were told that Maria had sold her bungalow to someone named Harrington. At this my cousin Betty laughed and said "Not Les Harrington" which they confirmed. Apparently they had visited Maria some years before we purchased and the Torrevieja friends were those to whom Maria had introduced us.

My husband and daughter (we live in the suburbs bordering Kent and London), were going to France for a couple of days. Whilst waiting in the queue of cars waiting to drive onto the ferry at portsmouth, my husband was looking into the car next to him in disbelief. His cousin (who lives in Lancashire), was in the car alonsgside my husband with his wife and 2 children. They ended up getting the ferry together and having fun in France until my husbands cousin, continued his journey to Belgium.

In December 2011 I had a holiday on Iona and was travelling across Mull on my way home to Banchory, in Aberdeenshire. It was 6am and the bus picked up four passengers on the way to the ferry terminal. One woman in her early 70s carried a haversack containing a long tube which stuck out from the top. There is a two hour wait in Oban for the train to Glasgow. I bumped into the woman in Oban and asked her if she would join me for a cup of coffee. She had spent her childhood in Inkpen, the same village in Wiltshire as my husband. She knew his parents well and many other mutual friends. Her son had been taught by my husband's mother. She had first set eyes on a double bass in my husband's uncle's house. He played a few notes for her. She knew then that she wanted to learn the double-bass; but she became a stage-manager. She and her husband retired to Mull and he died in his seventies. She spoke to friends about her childhood desire to learn the double-bass. They encouraged her. The new head of music in Oban Academy is a double bass player. She now practices every day for 2-3 hours and plays in three orchestras. The tube in her rucksack contained her bow.

When I first started my Ph.D. I was working with a then new operating system along with another student and we were having some problems. One evening I stayed in the office to work on a problem after my colleague had gone home. After a few hours I wanted to ask my colleague a question so called his flat. Oddly, the phone didn't even ring before my colleague picked up. We started talking over the problem before it because clear that we were talking at very slightly crossed purposes. It transpired that he'd had a flash of inspiration whilst at home and had called me to tell me his thoughts... at exactly the same moment as I'd called him to discuss the same subject. We both dialed the other number, were connected and assumed we'd placed the call.