Your chance in a million

[srw]

According to Terry Pratchett, million to one chances happen nine times out of ten.

If we typically live to seventy, and a "moment" lasts a second, then we'll each have 2,208 "million-to-one" moments in our lives.

I once bumped into someone on holiday in Crete who had been doing some work for us in the office.

 

[dellzeqq]

playing bridge in Thame Oxfordshire with the vet and his wife - a fortnightly event. The doorbell rang. It was the daughter, who was studying at Leeds - making a surprise visit to her parents because somebody had given her the open return portion of a railway ticket from Leeds to Thame. The person who gave her the ticket was one of my brothers - a fellow student. I had given him the ticket the previous month.

 

[colly]

If we typically live to seventy, and a "moment" lasts a second, then we'll each have 2,208 "million-to-one" moments in our lives.

I once bumped into someone on holiday in Crete who had been doing some work for us in the office.

If Each moment is a second and we have a million to one chance EVERY second that would be 2,207,520,000 million to 1 chances in a lifetime surely.

The chances of that happening must be a million to one.

 

[dellzeqq]

........and on a more serious note. Riding home one night on a dark section of the A41 I was hit from behind by a car doing 55. The car went on and I wound up covered in wet grime in a layby - the only layby for a mile in either direction. Left to myself I'd have died in pretty short order. The next car stopped - not because the driver saw me, but because he saw me - i was all but invisible - but because he knew me vaguely and recognised the bike. That's how I come to be typing this now.

 

[ianrauk]

i was on holiday in the Maldives. Small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Woman came up to me in the bar and said she recognised me. We both worked in Camden and used to drink in the same bar. Found out we were both in the music business and that we share acquaintances.

Another time I was walking down Holland Park on my way to the pub. A car pulled up and a chap got out and said hello. I was having trouble remembering who he was. He was an American chap that I had met whilst at a wedding in the USA a good few years before. It was his first trip to the UK.

 

[G-Zero]

We did close to 2000 miles of summer touring around various parts of France last year and were spending a few days at a site we'd never visited before in Boussac, Limousin. On the first night, I was sitting outside with a glass of red on the go when a colleague from work walked past and recognised me. We got chatting and were joined by my wife; and it turns out that the pair of them had worked together a few years earlier.

We eventually ended up at a site we visit regularly in the Vendee and walked the kids down to a free fire work display at la Favarie on the shore of Lac du Jaunay. It was absolutely packed with both locals and tourists, and we were sitting amongst the crowds when we were approached by a colleague of my wife, who was staying at another site in the area.

This year, my wife and I returned to France for a couple of weeks without the kids and we never bumped into a single acquaintance.

 

[ColinJ]

I was walking back from the Hebden Bridge firework display which more than 8,000 people had attended. As I walked through a car park, I thought I recognised the shadowy profile of a man getting into the front passenger seat of a car on the other side of the car park. I walked over and discovered that it was an old friend from Coventry who I hadn't seen for more than 15 years. He had been visiting friends in Leeds, and they decided earlier in the evening to drive over to watch our local display rather than the one at the end of the road. He didn't know I lived here ...

 

[colly]

I was walking back from the Hebden Bridge firework display which more than 8,000 people had attended. As I walked through a car park, I thought I recognised the shadowy profile of a man getting into the front passenger seat of a car on the other side of the car park. I walked over and discovered that it was an old friend from Coventry who I hadn't seen for more than 15 years. He had been visiting friends in Leeds, and they decided earlier in the evening to drive over to watch our local display rather than the one at the end of the road. He didn't know I lived here ...

Colin...............you have a stalker.

 

[Falwheeler]

I was riding the Nantes Brest Canal earlier this year when I came upon an old chap on a recumbent. He saw my CTC badge on my handlebar bag and said "ah CTC". We got talking and I told him I was from Falmouth in Cornwall where they make Trice recumbents, he said "I was there a few years ago collecting a couple of Moultons". Marvelous old chap, well into in his eighties.

 

[ColinJ]

Colin...............you have a stalker.

I've got more than one!

There's this older bloke who keeps pulling up in his van when I'm about to set off on my Sunday rides. He brings his teenage grandson with him and they get their bikes out and set off behind me.

I start to get the feeling that they are following me but then they'll overtake me and disappear off up the road ahead.

I start to relax but then I find them lurking about at the roadside somewhere in the distance looking really furtive. They look at me but don't look at me, if you know what I mean? Anyway, I carry on with my ride ...

Next thing, they are shooting past me again. Sometimes they bring a bearded accomplice with them. I reckon it's some top pro in disguise because every time they get to a steep hill, he just sprints off up the damn thing, and then I'll find him lurking about at the summit.

I'm not paranoid, but it is starting to worry me ...!

 

[xxmimixx]

And another how could I forget!!

Sold my son bike on Ebay and who collected it?? Funnymummy!!!

As soon as I saw her I thought she looked familiar, so started trying to link in my brain some kind of dejavu, then remembered a picture I saw she posted not long before (a week?) on a thread, I had to ask her! " Can I ask you a strange question please?" She looks at me weirdly and says "Yes?' all confused .... and I said "OK this may sound strange but are you funnymummy??" and then she REALLY looked confused LOL.

 

[ColinJ]

I had to ask her! " Can I ask you a strange question please?" She looks at me weirdly and says "Yes?' all confused .... and I said "OK this may sound strange but are you funnymummy??" and then she REALLY looked confused LOL.

So did you explain, or let her remain in a state of confusion?

 

[xxmimixx]

no I did explain LOL

 

[pubrunner]

Many years ago, I was on the ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick; I chucked a bottle containing a message in the sea, whilst still close to the coast - just off Peterhead. I've been told that usually, currents should have taken the bottle South.

However, the bottle went North and ended up on a very remote beach on the North East coast of Iceland. A writer (very well known in Iceland - published in over 20 other languages) had taken a trip to the 'wilderness' in search of 'inspiration' and he found the bottle. (We've been friends ever since and he and his wife have stayed with us).

The writer told me that his mother had been to a Nursing College in London in the early 60s; one of her flatmates (and also colleague) was the granddaughter of the painter Augustus John. The same granddaughter very occasionally used to visit our pub (which is off the beaten track) - on the live music nights. In fact, she visited with her very elderly mother(John's daughter) - who had a habit of bringing her whippet (yes, really) to such events.

I'm still close friends with the writer in Iceland and his mother is still in touch with her friend . . . who lives fewer than 3 miles away from where I live.

My name is Andy; the writer's name is Andri, the bottle was put in the sea off Scotland - Patron Saint - Andrew. Oh yes, when we first met in person, some years back, it was on St. Andrew's Day - really !

 

[brokenflipflop]

Wrote a letter to daughters teacher to say I'd be taking my daughter out of school a week before the school summer holidays start to attend a family holiday. During the second week of our holiday, which was in a tiny resort called Parissa on the Greek island of Santorini, the teacher I wrote the letter to was walking past our apartment with her husband and child.