Travel Coincidences In Torquay

Torquay Marina - On a sunny October day
As part of our travel recently we headed for the coastal town of Torquay. Up until then I had been bemoaning the fact that our break had not produced any coincidences.

This changed a little once in Torquay, nothing dramatic, but there was a succession of small coincidences. As we drove towards the town I took the wrong direction so by 'chance' we came across a road called Hellevoetsluis Way.

Now, to say the least, Hellevoetsluis is an unusual name for an English road or place. The reason being that it is a coastal town in Holland (Netherlands). I know this because I visited there when I was fifteen and that was the very first time I had travelled outside of England.

I remember that it was a school visit on a pupil exchange programme. On one visit to Hellevoetsluis we met the Mayor and he gave us English students a silver spoon (photo right) - which I still have and is in a display cabinet in our living room.

If I hadn't have gone in the wrong direction, on my way to Torquay, I wouldn't have been reminded of my visit to Holland. I feel that some coincidences occur to get us thinking about certain things, which seeing the name Hellevoetsluis certainly did. Most of it though I'll keep to myself! I'll just say that the Dutch student I exchanged visits with was a girl. I wonder what happened to Connie Booy and her best friend Bertie?

After my wife and I found our place to stay overnight we walked to the sea front. It was a glorious sunny day, warm for late October, so we sat outside a cafe overlooking the Marina and had a coffee while watching the world go by. And who did we see walk by? A neighbour who lives in the same road as we do. So a second coincidence. Neither of us knew that the other would have been anywhere near Torquay.

The third coincidence of the day was also something small but somehow meaningful to us. That evening as we found somewhere to eat we were talking about our 14 week old grandson - as we often do! And there in front of us the car number plate spelt out SAM - our grandson is called Samuel. It was like a sign that he was okay, well to my wife and I it was.

Okay, so these three coincidences aren't exactly mind blowing. I'd have liked something more exciting to write but they showed that whoever dishes out our supply hadn't forgotten about us completely. That was reassuring.

World's Oldest Working Clock And Salisbury Cathedral

While on our recent break we visited Salisbury Cathedral, which is thought to be on the same ley line as Stonehenge (more about this perhaps on another day). What the Cathedral does house is the world's oldest working clock, as per the photo above. Yes, I know I'm a little off subject from the usual subject matter of the blog!

Though the first stones for Salisbury Cathedral were laid in 1202 the clock is from 1386 and was originally housed in a separate bell tower until 1789. It is now positioned in the North Nave Aisle.

The clock has no face, as per modern time pieces, and was designed to strike the hours.

The power is supplied by two large stones hanging from pulleys. As the weights fall, ropes unwind from the wooden barrels. One barrel drives the main wheel which is regulated by the escapement, the other drives the striking mechanism and the air brake.

When the weights reach the floor, they have to be lifted back up again, a task that explains the presence of two large wheels shaped like steering wheels at either side of the clock.


Salisbury Cathedral itself is a special place with Britain's largest spire at 404 feet (123m) and has the earliest choir stalls dating back to 1236.

The Cathedral's Chapter House is home to the best preserved of four surviving original Magna Carta sealed by King John in 1215. Written in abbreviated Latin on Vellum, the document set down for the first time the relationship between the King and his subjects and their rights.

The Magna Carta's significance in the democratic world continues today, inspiring documents from the United States Constitution to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I've mentioned before that I do not belong to any organised religion but I love the atmosphere and history of places of worship. I'd recommend a visit to Salisbury Cathedral if you are ever in the area and, while there, take a look at the world's oldest working clock, the tall spire, the medieval Cloisters, the Magna Carta, the 1236 choir stalls and so on.

Woodhenge The Stonehenge Made Of Wood

Yesterday I wrote about my visit to Stonehenge and published various photos. I also visited Woodhenge which is about 2.5 miles from Stonehenge as the crow flies.

Nothing very glamorous about Woodhenge but it indicates how some circles were initially made of wood - thus the carpentry style joints in the Stonehenge stones (see yesterday's post).


Woodhenge is so called, as the name suggests, because it was a wooden structure similar to Stonehenge and is believed to have been set up during the Bronze age, maybe for religious rituals.

The wood posts are now long gone but concrete posts have been placed to mark the position of the original timbers. These concrete posts show the six concentric rings and are marked with different colours.

The rings are in fact oval - more about this in a moment - with the long axis pointing to the rising sun on Midsummer Day. There was a burial site near the centre of the rings and a bank, with a ditch, originally surrounded the monument - which was entered by a causeway on the North East.

There are other stone and similar rings in the UK, Ireland and northern France. Most people think of these as being round - circles in other words - but many are ellipses, flattened circles or even egg shaped.

Various conclusions have been drawn about these oval shaped rings. One is that the people of Britain must have been capable of working out geometry some 2000 years before Pythagoras.

The earliest rings are generally circular, obviously easier to construct with perhaps just a middle peg and some form of rope. The other rounded shapes are thought of as being later and required a greater knowledge of mathematics. As to why they went to the trouble of making rings that weren't circular is unknown, the reasons lost in the midst of time.

It also raises the question as to how this information or knowledge was passed on throughout prehistoric Britain.

As with all of these rings or circles - Stonehenge, Woodhenge and others - as to why they were constructed is unknown - though there are many theories.

Further Reading:
Exclusive Photos Of The Stonehenge Mystery
The Cornish Mystery Of The Men-an-Tol Stones
The Cornish Mystery Of The Trevethy Quoit Stones

Exclusive Photos Of The Stonehenge Mystery

My wife and I have been away for about twelve days visiting various places that interest us, one of these being Stonehenge.

Here are a selection of photos I snapped of these ancient monuments. Unfortunately they were taken further away from the stones than I would have wished. Visitors are now kept from getting too close - which is a shame. Luckily, on previous visits, I have been able to touch and walk under the stones - which is how things should be - but times have changed.


Explanations as to why Stonehenge was erected are numerous, from the ridiculous (an ancient racecourse, a war memorial, the tomb of Boadicea, erected over a corn circle etc.) to the possible (energy centers, as astronomical alignments, for religious rituals etc.).

The 'official' line is that it is a 'survival from a prehistoric culture now lost to us. The monument evolved between 3,000 BC and 1,600 BC. It is aligned with the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset, but it's exact purpose remains a mystery.'



The photo below indicates how the stones were erected by people who were familiar with making things out of wood. To the left of the picture there is a single stone with a small rounded part on the top.

This stone would have once held a lintel, which would have had a hole into which the rounded part would have fitted - a form of a rustic carpentry joint.





There's something in the sky to the right of the photo below - not a UFO surely!


The weather changed while we were at Stonehenge, as can be seen by the colour of the sky and the lengthening of the shadows.


The photo below shows the 'Heel Stone' which is about 40 yards (37m) outside of the main circle of stones. This is what is featured in the Druids celebrations at Midsummer.

Standing in the center of the circle at this time watchers can see the sun rise in line with the Heel Stone. At sight of the first rays the Druids declare, "Arise, Oh Sun! Let the darkness of night fade before the beams of thy glorious light!"

Though the Druids seem to have adopted Stonehenge they weren't in existence at the time the stones were erected. So it wasn't them who built the circles, as is often believed.


And finally an artist's impression of how Stonehenge would have looked in it's prime. This would have been some time between 3000 BC and 1600 BC.


Further Reading:
The Cornish Mystery Of The Men-an-Tol Stones
The Mystery Of The Trevethy Quoit Stones



Photos: © Mike Perry 2010

Yo-Yo Coincidence WhichTurns Back The Years

This is another re-post from the beginnings of this blog. It isn't a big flashy coincidence but nevertheless, as it was personal, it impressed me at the time.

I had been clearing out the loft in our house and came across a case full of bits and pieces from when I was a child. Amongst the items were two autograph books. I kept these out as I wanted to look at them to see if any of the more famous names might be of interest.

An autograph I did notice, as I absent mindedly flicked quickly through the pages, was one of somebody called Don Robertson who wrote in my book, "Hi Mike, Don Roberston Yo-Yo Instructor."

I didn't think any more about this until I was watching The One Show on (UK) television the same night as I retrieved the autograph books. Who did they bring on as an odd interest item? Yes, an 81 year old Don Roberston!

Seemingly Don is still technically the reigning yo-yo champion because the title has not been contested, since he won it many years ago - and I've got his autograph! Small world.

There was another aspect of this coincidence as well. On the front of my autograph book (pic right) was the word 'Corbiere'. I had never realised this previously.

Corbiere is something I mentioned in my post Coincidence or Synchronicity - Example 4 about how I dreamt a future happening, where the word Corbiere played an important part. By another coincidence I also used to live in Corbiere Avenue, years back, when I bought my very first house.

I feel that such coincidences show how ten, twenty, forty or hundreds of years apart are all linked and threaded together. In some respect time is meaningless.

And just in case anyone is interested in either yo-yo's or Don Robertson here's an old fashioned video I found titled Don Robertson Live Yo-Yo 1990

Paralysed By The Aliens Of The Lavender Field

Sometimes I wonder if it's worth giving examples of UFO sightings as I'm sure there are dozens of made up stories. It's difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I'm not sure why but the following alien encounter felt believable, perhaps because this had also been verified by regression analysis. I also liked the fact that it happened in France!

A farmer, Maurice Masse, was up and about early at his property in Valensole, France. He decided to have a quick cigarette at about 6am before working in the lavender fields. He heard a whirring noise above him and expected to see some sort of helicopter - but he didn't see anything in the sky.

Masse walked out into the field and there he saw what he described as an egg shaped object, about the size of a small car, which was supported on six spindly legs. On top of the body there was a raised dome. All in all it was about eight feet tall.

In front of the craft / UFO were two small figures which he took at first to be children. They were inspecting the lavender plants.

As he ventured a little nearer he realised that these were definitely not children. They were human like but had large bald heads and appeared to have no necks, their heads seemed to merge with their torso.

The aliens faces had slanting eyes and lipless mouths. They were both wearing green/blue garments that looked something like a boiler suit and there was a small canister hanging from a belt.

One of the aliens looked up from his examination of the lavender and saw the farmer. A beam of light hit him and rendered him paralysed, though he was still aware of what was happening.

The humanoids communicated with each other by strange sounds. Maurice Masse said of this, "They were looking at me and must have been making fun of me. Nevertheless, their facial expressions were not ill-natured but very much the reverse."

He was then able to watch the beings move back to their craft, with a strange movement. Masse describes this as a "falling and rising in space like bubbles in a bottle without apparent support".

They entered their UFO through a roller-blind type hatch and he then saw them looking at him through the transparent dome. The vehicle took off with a whistling sound and disappeared once it reached a height of about 60 feet.

It took about a quarter of an hour before Masse regained use of his limbs and, with no immediate apparent side effects, he went off to tell his friends and family what he had witnessed. He told them, "The strangers had such a calm and peaceful aura about them, so I was not in the least afraid."

It's interesting that there are similarities to other sightings, even to the UFO Aliens Of Voronezh where one witness described an egg shaped object and a humanoid about four feet tall.

Other witnesses at Voronezh also described the alien's head as being a continuation of the shoulders.

In another alien incident in France a Marius Dewilde tells of how he was also paralysed by a beam of light. In South Africa Danie Van Graan saw small humanoids and they too sent out a beam of light to paralyse him.

Going back to Maurice Masse, after the sighting the lavendar around the landing site withered and died. With Danie Van Graan the craft took off from an alfafa field - again here the crops would no longer grow.

Similarities and also discrepancies exist with alien and/or UFO sightings. One day we will know the answer.

Further Reading:
The Mystery Of The Giant Aliens Of Voronezh
A Dream Or An Alien Encounter

It Was Written In The Stars That They Would Meet

Is it fate or just a coincidence? Michael Cook and Kristen Reed have just got married. Okay nothing bizarre there until, that is, the coincidences start to stack up.

The couple met at a wedding five years ago in New Jersey. He'd travelled from Virginia and Kristen from Florida. They got talking, as you do, on such occasions. There was an attraction but they had to return to their respective homes. Nowadays, of course, we have emails and even the phone so they kept in touch.

A month went by and the attraction was still there. It was then that they started to notice the coincidences.

Kristen told the Cape Cod Times, "I told him my birthday was March 30, 1978, and he said, 'So is mine.'"

One swallow doesn't make a summer and one coincidence doesn't make a cluster. Michael had, after all, also dated another girl who had her birthday on March 30th.

Kristen asked more questions, "I asked him where he was born, and he said Virginia, and I said, 'So was I.' He said he was born at Fairfax Hospital, and I said, 'So was I.'

"I thought he was just kidding me, so I made him make a copy of his driver's license and fax it to me. It was true!"

There then followed other little things. They had both spent a lot of time at Cape Cod. Kristen's grandparents have a home in Harwich and Michael spent vacations in Harwich Port every year, as did Kristen. They were well and truly inter-linked in all sorts of ways.

They married on October 30, 2010. Standing up for them was Kristen's younger sister and Michael's brother - who just happen to share the same birthday!

This couple were meant to meet at that wedding in New Jersey. It was written in the stars or somewhere.

A final note from Kristen, "I'm the dreamer of the two of us. I always believed that someone special would come into my life, but I never thought it would be something like this!"