It had been a wonderful day, in spite of the long drive, with the delight of the sparrows on Holy Island and the magnificent stone circle at Duddo as its highlights. By the time we reached the outskirts of Edinburgh, the light was already beginning to fade.

The hotel where we really wanted to stay was full. We couldn’t book in at the second choice either… so I just booked the cheapest available guest house with a beach in the area. Other than a good breakfast, we only needed a brief stopover, so I didn’t really look. It was not until just before leaving that I printed off the booking confirmation and glimpsed the cropped picture that the cogs began to turn.

“I am sure it is that place we tried last time…” We had been unable to find a hotel on our way back from our last Scottish excursion where we didn’t quite make it as far north as we had hoped… and, for some reason, I was sure that this was one of the places we had tried in vain. It had been January, and getting late. My companion pointed out that such a coincidence would be far too random, even for us, and that the tiny sliver of building that was visible on the photo was nowhere near enough to identify anything anyway. But, sure enough, it was… the self-safe guest house, the first we had tried that night. This time, however, our booking was assured.

My birthday dinner, in another echo of that previous trip, was fish and chips…but this time, we did it right, eating them from the paper on the seafront, watching a sunset and watched by a hopeful seagull. Next morning, we had the car packed with time for a walk on the beach before breakfast. We were just starting to eat when two other guests came down… and we knew straight away there would be no early start.

There is neither logic nor reason to such meetings, just a kind of recognition. The two women who greeted us were very much on our wavelength and, by the time we left, we were leaving friends behind us. The meeting put a sparkle on the morning and was to be instrumental in putting the flesh on the bare bones of our next workshop weekend.

It would be easy to miss these moments that stand at the crossroads of possibility, but as soon as you begin to pay attention to the small synchronicities and oblique nudges from the universe, life takes on a new depth and connectedness. You simply do not know where any path or meeting might lead, but unless you are open to what they might hold and ready to follow their silent beckoning, you can go nowhere.

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