It was a stinking hot day in Perth in 2001, as I wandered up to the shop in the caravan park where we were staying, to buy a bottle of milk. We’d been on the road, travelling Australia, for nearly 6 months by that point.
I was tired, dirty, sweaty and had chucked on a grotty old pair of shorts and a top. My hair was a mess and there was no point wearing makeup because it would have just melted off. But I didn’t really mind. It wasn’t as if I was going to see anybody I knew – I was over 4000 kilometres from home, after all!
You guessed it.
Just in front of the shop I bumped into a girl we knew.
It was weird how our paths kept crossing.
The hubster first met her – they caught the same bus for years, although they went to different high schools.
Then I met her, some years later, when I got a job at the office she worked at.
Fast forward a few years, and she and her husband built a house literally around the corner from ours!
They’d then sold and moved on, so it had been some time since we’d seen each other.
But now, here we both were. Both travelling Australia in a caravan with our families. Both staying in the same tourist park in Perth. Both had a son and a daughter. Both just happened to need milk from the corner shop at the same time.
Despite my embarrassment over looking really grubby, come to think of it, she looked much the same. Besides, it was so nice to see a familiar face, and when our daughter turned 5 a few days later, we even held a little party for her and knew some kids to invite!
You’d think after this long-running string of coincidences, we’d be best-est buds. The reality is, we haven’t seen them since then. We must be due to have another chance encounter soon – maybe next year when we are in Europe for our silver wedding anniversary?!
Is there somebody in your life that you just keep crossing paths with?!