friend and lover with a family connection

In the summer of 1999, I attended the Cambridge Folk Festival with some friends. I was sitting on the grass listening to some music when I overheard two young Frenchmen chatting. Since I'd just finished my French A-level and had also been to France a lot, I thought this was a good opportunity to practise my French. We got chatting and I gave out a flyer to volunteer in an Oxfam shop, which I was managing at the time. One of the young men took a liking to me and came to volunteer every day the following week and even baked me some fairy cakes. When he went back to France, we kept in touch as penpals, writing letters to improve our language. This was the start of a ten-year friendship. Two or three years later, he visited me in Oxford, where I was studying. I was writing an email one afternoon, and he leant over, reading it thoughtfully. My grandmother's name, Kiki, had been mentioned in the email. He then started asking me questions about her. Did she live in London? Yes. South East? Yes. Did she rent out rooms? Yes. Did she have a long-term Belgian tenant? Yes. Did she live on Lowther Hill? Yes! Remarkably, it turned out that my French friend had stayed next door to my grandmother with his Belgian PhD supervisor for the whole summer of 1998, the year before he met me at random among throngs of people at the Cambridge Folk Festival. I took this as some kind of fateful message, and soon we started a short affair. Sadly, the coincidence did not mean we were each others' destiny. Over the years our friendship was punctured by little flings and miserable recriminations. We no longer keep in touch, but I'll always remember this as the most extraordinary coincidence of my life. Jane ps I hope this young Frenchman is not involved in this project, by coincidence, as he had a job as a mathematician at Cambridge some years ago! Sorry if you're reading this hun, but I'm sure you'll agree none of it is untrue.