Well I never!

Someone once told me that when coincidences start to happen too often, it's a sign that the loose ends of one's life are being drawn together; drawn towards a possible conclusion. A cheery thought. Hopefully, the coincidence that happened to a friend of mine last night is an isolated incident, and has nothing to do with loose ends at all.

I took this friend to dinner in a Nottingham restaurant – there must be seven billion restaurants in Nottingham, but I chose the very same one she had been taken to by someone else, only the night before. But what's more – her dining companion on that occasion was also called Richard (I don't know this other Richard, so she knew that there was no way it could have been planned). But, but, but, what's more – she and this other Richard were allocated exactly the same table by the waiter! How spooky is that?

I asked her if she'd chosen the same meal on both evenings, but she had not. Sigh of relief. Poor girl – it must have seemed like a very, very bad case of déjà vu.

On a different matter, I'm annoyed to see that Lionel Shriver has a new novel out about a woman who exists in two parallel worlds; one where she leaves her husband for her lover, and one where she does not (a bit like 'Sliding Doors'). This is annoying because I too am writing a novel about two parallel worlds – one in which a young woman dies, and one in which she does not. I suppose the only difference is that in my novel, you could say that the woman does not exist in both worlds; only in one. The fact that she did exist at one time though, is of enormous significance to those she left behind.

I don't know, eh? There's nothing new under the sun, is there?