Imagine this. In a lifetime you meet a lot of people and they pass along a continuum of contact or influence or whatever else. Think of them as beads in a jar. Some illuminate and inspire, others give definition, a few just provide ballast if you like.

You get the beads out of the jar and you notice that there are similarities between some of them. You notice that others complement each other. You compare them. Are their shapes similar? Do they work together? Might they share any features? Sometimes they glow and reflect each other’s light. Sometimes one will be in the shadow of another. They all interact, however much we may not think they do or even believe they could.

One day the jar gets shaken and something changes. A bead moves into a different place. The place the bead leaves can be filled by you or by someone else you know. Then you realise that the bead that has moved shares some common links with other beads in the jar.

They all start to slot into place and to make a pattern and you realise that without that one linking with that one and the fact that that one moved or that one looks a bit like that one and all of a sudden you have a necklace instead of a jar of beads…

All this is leading up to me having a chance conversation with a good friend earlier this evening to discover that the person whose job DM has just filled (because the person who vacated it has moved onwards and upwards) is related to her. How do we know her? She and her hubby lodged in our house for a year or so. Both are life’s beautiful people. Now we find out that their step-grandson is responsible for David getting a job!