Long story, but an amazing coincidence.....

Around 1990, I had a flatmate (Claire) for about 6 months here in Sydney, who was visiting from England. We became great friends and when she went back to England we kept in close contact.

About a year later, she rang and asked if I could rent my spare room out to a close friend of hers (Carol) who was backpacking around Australia and would be staying in Sydney for a few months. I was happy to do this and Carol moved in a few weeks later.

A few days after Carol moved in, I got an excited phone call from Claire - she had gotten engaged and she wanted Carol to be a bridesmaid. She also wanted another friend, Caroline (who was Scottish but happened coincidentally to be then living in Sydney with her aunt), to be another bridesmaid.

Claire had gone to university with Caroline, but only met Carol years later, and so these two future bridesmaids had never met. Given that Carol and Caroline now happened to be in the same city, Claire asked if I could tee up a meeting between them so they could get to know each other. I was happy to do this, so I arranged for the three of us to have lunch together.

When I went to introduce them, they suddenly both burst into laughter and Caroline said that they already knew each other. They had (completely unknowingly) sat next to each other for hours on a bus trip one month earlier between Townsville and Cairns in far north Queensland - Carol had even asked Caroline if she could borrow her toothpaste!

I don't want to begin to think about what the odds are of two bridesmaids meeting for the first time on a bus 25,000 km from home would be!

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith