After four long, tiring and unsuccessful weeks of flat hunting it was my last and final attempt at finding somewhere to live.  I had been become dispirited, worn out and fed up.  With no-where else to turn and 4 days before my start date at the publisher’s, I was relying on www.gumtree.co.uk.

I needed somewhere to live and quick – I was about to start working for a publisher in the city but my luck was running out.  How hard could this be?  I had gumtree.co.uk… Er well trying to marry up the right flat, the right room mate, in the right location in London at the right price was proving impossible.

I had experienced some slummy places, some smelly places, some ant infested places and that’s before I even get started on some of the weirdo’s that presented themselves.  I became dispirited and fed up. I had reached a point of acceptance that I was being unrealistic and wasn’t going to find a place I was happy with, at least not on my budget.

I wanted Maide Vale, it wasn’t far from where I would be working and coming from green leafed Norwich, I needed trees and big one’s.  Maida Vale hit the mark.  Even so,  I was on my last visit, time had run out.  I found a quaint coffee shop in Little Venice, over looking the Canal.  If I could have stayed in the vicinity of little venice I most certainly would but this really was just a coffee break – I didn’t have £1500 for the weekly rent!  With a mouth like Gandi’s slipper I collapsed exhausted, needing my caffine fix and sat back looking out over the canal.  I Laughed to myself about the whole ordeal allowing my worries to pale into the distance.  I knew one way or another things would work out – even if I ended up couch surfing.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.  Sitting there indulging in a mammoth coffee mocha heaped with cream this very refined and alluring woman walks over sits beside me, admires my coffee and says, “wow!  that looks delicious I must have one of those”.  The events that followed were noting short of surreal.

Another charming woman joins us, she’s laced in fine jewellery, saddled with gucci bags and speaks in an oxford tone. Both women are mesmerised by my story.  ‘A country girl moving to London, flat hunting, changing career’s, more importantly leaving a 16 year relationship to become a spinster again at 30 something … I called it a ‘life laundry!’

Even so, spooning every minute of my ranting on and discovering I had looked at 25 places with no joy, one of the women suggested I stay with her friend as she had a lovely room. Then, oddly enough the other woman, Mandy, offered a place with her in Hampstead. “I have a large room in a big house I rattle around in all on my own, in fact I’m never there, I travel around on different retreats, so you are very welcome to come and stay with me for as long as you like.”  With all this happening, Bobby McFerrin song, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’, came over the radio.  “It’s a sign! Meher Baba, (Tibetan Lama), would call this serendipity.” They both cried out. All this was out of the ordinary and a little surreal, so I decided to go with the flow.

Surreal as it sounds by that afternoon I was at Mandy’s house in Hampstead having tea and biscuits, admiring a fantastic room with Chaise Longe,  en-suite and french doors that opened onto a balcony overlooking the garden.  Thrown into the weekly all inclusive rent is a shrine, delicately put together by Mandy.  Finely decorated in tibetan silks, pictures of Lama Keshma, (Mandy’s teacher), lots of candles and incense sticks.  “It would be good for you to practice meditation to calm your mind.” She tells me. After a hectic day at the publisher’s I was thinking she could be on to something.

“The whole top floor will be yours.” Mandy says.  ‘I’m in heaven,’ I thought thanking my lucky stars as Hampstead simply wasn’t on my vision board.  Weeks of searching for somewhere to live and in one afternoon I’m saved by Mocha.  With more tree’s than I bargained for at Hampsted Heath.   Might even rub shoulder’s with favourite of the month, ‘Jude Law’ … I mused.  In the weeks that followed I observed several synchronistic events unfolding while living with Mandy and her spirituality.  She introduced me to several interesting characters.

There were times where I would question my direction in life and Mandy would simply say: “Ask for guidance, ‘What should I do now?”  As if by magic through synchronistic means I would get the answers … even between the hum of a dong bell and the early morning chants!  As long as I wasn’t mistaken for a tree hugger, intuitively I knew it was a worthwhile experience.  So, you really never know when synchronicity is going to come knocking at your door like it did for me that summer when the fairy godmother arrived.