Monday, February 2nd – Coincidence : Rest in Bar. do Velho

Here are three recent examples of coincidence in my life.

1. I was in work a couple of weeks ago, checking the details of an order delivery address, when a colleague asked me to have a look at the address of another order set to go out. I looked over at her screen, saw the address was 47 Pennine Way, then told her that I was just sorting that order out, so she didn’t have to worry. My colleague then told me that it couldn’t be the same order, as she had just made it available to view. We double checked and found that there were two orders to go out with the same first address line, one with an address in Derbyshire, one with an address in Northumberland. Both on the same day, from a hundred orders due out. What are the chances?

2. The weekend before I left for Portugal, I was driving through Dalkey village on Saturday morning and as I approached a junction, a silver Maserati in front of me hesitated, then reversed slightly, at which I raised my hands off the steering wheel and threw my eyes to heaven. As the driver steadied himself and pulled off, I realised it was none other than Bono from U2. Our paths never having crossed before, I felt a little bit privileged to have almost been frontended by him. On Sunday evening, I went to meet some friends for a drink, and who was sitting at the next table? Only my good friend Bono. He did a round of handshaking at our table before he left, most likely because we left him alone, and as he shook my hand, I said, “Paul, do you drive a silver Maserati?” He said he did, so I reminded him of the Saturday morning incident. He was very gracious, apologised and said “It’s a musician thing man, we have a problem with space”.
No problem. Myself and Bono are all squared up.

3. Monday was my first and well deserved rest day. Well, rest from walking, when I get myself some broadband and catch up with work. I asked the landlady when the bus went into Sa Bras de Alpotel (I had downloaded a list of free Wireless Internet hotspots from the net and it was the closest). She told me that there was only one bus a day, at 8 o clock, that I missed it, but I should be able to thumb in easy enough. It was 14 km, but I set off in the right direction, sticking my thumb out as cars went past. I was about half way there before a car stopped, but I was glad for the lift. Paolo was a very decent sort, late twenties, born in Canada to Portuguese parents, so perfect English and plenty to talk about. I told him what I was up to, we exchanged email addresses and I told him I’d send him on a link to the blog. When we made it to town, I asked him if he knew the address of my hotspot, he said he didn’t, but said there was internet available at the library/civic buildings where his girlfriend worked. We called in, they were very accommodating and I got free internet for the day. Paolo had apoligised for not being around to give me a lift back out in the evening (this is the sort of generosity that Portuguese people tend to extend), but went in and chatted to his girlfriend, who agreed to give me a lift back at six. Fantastic. So, at six o' clock, she and a female colleague, both full of smiles, appeared with car and asked me to hop in. My non-existent Portuguese was getting me nowhere, so I switched to Spanish. As we chatted, it turned out that her friend was actually involved with the Via Algarvinia, and had painted most of the signposting that I’d been following for the last couple of days. This gave us plenty to talk about and when we switched to English, I was actually able to understand what was being said. When we got to near where I was staying, the girls invited me over the road for a drink. We were chatting away, I was giving feedback, telling them about the blog, they spoke passionately about the project, telling me about the difficulties they were having and all the positives so far. As we were chatting, one of the girls’ phone rang, she said it was her boss and she had to take the call. She told her boss that she was talking to me, that I was walking/hurling the Via Algarviana, explained that I was writing a blog, told him my name. As this point, her face took on a surprised look; she then turned to me and said, “He knows you”. I didn’t understand at first, but she told me his name, it turned out he was the email contact for the Via Algavinia and we had been corresponding for the last couple of weeks via email.

Now. I would say that all three of these events have about the same chance of occurring. But, isn’t it great that the further they are removed from the work/eat/sleep routine, the more interesting they get. Coincidence?