Some things are meant to be

Coincidence. Serendipity.  They're not quite the same thing but I've been pondering both words and their meaning in the last 24 hours as we settle back into life in London after our 4,244km odyssey to Puglia and back.

Why?  Because just before sunset on the night we arrived at the trullo with Allegra and Sherlock, we had just parked the van when I noticed a little car parked on the property. Exhausted, dirty and knowing Robert still had to build the Ikea beds loaded on the van before we could rest, socialising was the last thing on any of our minds.

But as we approached, an elderly couple, greeted us with wide smiles that would have warmed a winter's day. "Siete i proprietari?" "Are you the owners?" asked the lady.
"Si"I said, introducing myself, Robert and a rather grumpy Allegra.

"Io sono Caterina, mio marito Peppino .... io venivo qui da bambina, le mie zie, i cugini d'estate".
"My name is Caterina, my husband is Peppino ... I stayed here as a child, to see my aunts, to be with my cousins during the summers ..."

And so it seems that of any moment, on any given day in any week, month or year, we happened to drive up to our trullo from London just as a woman who spent her most memorable childhood summers there - and whose family had owned it and others nearby - happened to feel the urge to take a drive with her husband and visit the old stomping ground.

That evening, we strolled briefly around the trullo and into the building chaos inside but happily swapped numbers so we could make a time to meet and talk properly again. Caterina kept shaking her head as she walked, saying 'E' una meraviglia' and I must admit a frisson of joy when she remarked that we had kept it "proprio come era" ("just as it was") internally.

I've seen many, many trulli restored with such precision by their new owners that they lose their simplicity and spartan souls in the drive for modernity. I have felt guilty enough adding a pool but pragmatism says that if we are to rent it - and if it is to help us derive an additional income flow - it was an important investment. (Not to mention our own enjoyment!)

Below is a stunning trullo we rented last year, before embarking on our project. Gorgeous but somehow, too perfect, inside and out.

A week or so later, we invited Caterina and Peppino to come over for an aperitivo and they arrived bearing a splendid tray of fresh, handmade orecchiette for us. By then, I had settled the van's contents into the trullo and the bits and pieces I had collected from markets and Ebay over nearly a year were in situ. The interior has begun to have a real sense of identity and is palpable despite the ongoing works. (I am beyond happy with what we have managed to do indoors but more about that another time).

As the sun set that evening, we carefully helped the couple climb onto the roof terrace and as the golden twilight lit up the restored dry stone walls, the ribbon of dark blue sea on the horizon and the silvery sheen of the olives, it all felt like a dream. Caterina seemed to echo my thoughts: "E' un sogno" she said. Peppino looked outward over the panorama and declared it 'un paradiso'.

We chatted for a couple of hours, over a bottle of spumante, then with a glint in her eye, Caterina said "let's go for a walk, over there, I can show you the trullo my father owned". And so, we got a tour, in the fading light, as this wonderful 71 year old lady climbed with sure foot over worn patches in the stone wall, following a track she remembered from childhood. The trullo next door, a splendid, much larger trullo than ours in near collapse, she said, had not been habitable in the 60 years she knew the properties. However the large stone platform outside its biggest cone had been used every season by the entire neighbourhood to hand thresh wheat for flour. Wheat was grown haphazardly, wherever there was space among the olives, it seems.

Further on, to the trullo her father had inherited, and Caterina identified a specific fig tree where we picked the most divine small fruits I have ever eaten. This property too is now pretty much completely abandoned although one cone had a TV aerial on it, suggesting someone owns it and had used it in the last few decades.  Beyond, up on the crest of  the nearest hill, she pointed to a splendid, abandoned house with must be a heart stopping view: "I can take you there next time" she said. "A widower lived there, we used to hike up there, visit him, take him some food".

Our trullo was owned by Caterina's two aunts: two cones each and there were several children between them. Water was drawn from the cistern (we have now restored it) and the little fireplace we discovered and which Mimmo the Magician has now restored was the kitchen hearth. The two end trulli were used to sleep while the big middle one was the communal room. Kids all piled in together: the place we now have our (small) double bed was also used occasionally to sleep the horse when an aunt came to work the land alone.

The properties had all belonged to Caterina's grandfather who then divided the trulli among various children. Often, this is the complication with these delightful properties: they have been inherited by so many descendants, that it is difficult to track them all down to ascertain ownership, let alone close a sale. I have to admit that knowing the one next door is owned by 16 or more people makes me happy - the likelihood of it being developed is very, very low. Meanwhile, we have a beautiful, romantic ruin to look at - a reminder of what we found when we bought Trullo Stella e Mare.

Here it is, at sunset

That night, after Caterina and Peppino left, I felt as if I'd somehow found a treasure. They promised to return before we left for London and sure enough, the day before we were due to drive away, they arrived with plum jam made with little wild plums Caterina had collected from around our trullo last winter, before we had started works. She also gave us three jars of sugo di pomodoro that looks so good I can barely stand the idea of opening them. They are now going to talk to various family members, cousins, friends who might have photographs of our crazy pile of rocks.

I've invited them to collect figs, prunes, olives whatever they want as often as they want and we have agreed to have dinner together in London when they come to visit their daughter in November. (Their other daughter lives in Naples, yet another rather lovely coincidence).

This couple's presence on the night of our arrival added another layer of meaning to our project - and a new friendship - that I couldn't have dreamed up for a novel. (My Puglian, paternal grandfather's name was also Giuseppe and my grandmother called him Peppino for short).

They also told us happily they've celebrated 50 years of marriage and even in the short time we have spent with them, they exude the kind of gentle love that comes with time and shared experience.

Coincidence? Yes.

Serendipity? Without doubt.

Fate? I hope so.