Unbelievable Coincidence

A few weeks back I saw something in the bookshop Borders that reminded me of somebody I met back in 2009. You see in 2009 my boyfriend, Aaron and I took a trip to UK to visit both our best friends and a few more friends in Paris. It was a very tight budget trip and we got by with the help of so many wonderful friends over in both countries. 

While in UK, we took a weekend trip to London with some friends and met up with another Malaysian friend who was living and working in London at the time. 

One of the days in London, all of us took a walk down a row of shops, I do not exactly remember where but there were a lot of people hanging out in the back alley. As we walked down that street, we bumped into a street performer James and his ginger cat with a scarf around its neck, Bob. James was walking around with his guitar while Bob was comfortably perched on top of James' guitar. 

James approached us and said that for one Pound, he will sing for us. I told him that I only wanted to pet Bob. James told me for one Pound, he will sing and I could pet Bob. So we struck a deal. The whole time James sang, I petted Bob and Aaron took a video of the whole thing (unfortunately the hard disk where I saved the video is broken and I cannot retrieve the video). 

After James finished his song, we paid them, said goodbye to Bob and they both went on their merry way. Last month, about five years later, I went into Borders and found this book.

I could not believe my eyes! James had since written a book about Bob and it became the No 1 bestseller! According to the book, James was homeless when he found an injured Bob, nursed him back to health and they have been best buddies ever since.

I also found another book James wrote after the wildly successful first book and the second one contained delightful photos of Bob doing different things including taking a walk (aweee), perched on James' guitar (double aweeee) and wearing different scarves(triple aweeee). I will finish this book and let you know how their story went.

Incredibly out of the millions of people living in London, I actually ran into this pair before they shared their heartwarming story with the world. I hope James is no longer living on the streets and that both he and Bob now have a warm home to go to at night. 

I am a big fan of yours, Bob! May you live a good long life aside your best friend, James Bowen.