I’ve been reminded that it was seven years ago this weekend that a moment of stupidity changed my life. Ok, that sounds a little dramatic but it’s true.

I was in Wales for the weekend visiting my childhood friend Jade. We decided to go to Tenby for the day, unaware quite how miserable the weather was going to be. We didn’t let that ruin our fun though. We wrapped up as best we could and explored.

I remembered I had seen on an episode of Grand Designs that a former lifeboat station in Tenby had been converted into a home, so we wandered down to check it out. Annoyingly my camera battery died as we were heading towards it. Fortunately I had a spare so changed it. But then nothing. The camera was caput. Turns out electrics and water don’t mix; who knew?!

It was drizzling at this point but then the heavens opened so we headed back into the town to find a pub to dry off and have a drink while I sulked about my broken camera. Wales were playing in the Six Nations – a close away game against Scotland which they lost by just one point – so all the pubs were packed, but we managed to find a pew somewhere.

On my return to London I took my camera in to a camera shop to see about getting it repaired. I was still annoyed with myself, made worse by the fact I was about to head to France and my camera wouldn’t be repaired in time, but a chat with the friendly sales assistant about Paris made me look forward to the day I was going to have in the city on my way back from Normandy.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. I was home from a lovely break with the olds in France and had collected my repaired camera, when I received the following message:

It turns out that I followed said sales assistant on Instagram and had been greatly enjoying his recent photos from his own trip to Paris. In fact, while I was in France enjoying their photos I almost asked about meeting up when I was going to be in the city. Silly idea, I told myself. They are a stranger. In a foreign city. And I have no idea what they look like.

Roll forward a few more weeks and Adam and I met up for what would become the first of many Tickles London adventures.

Nearly seven years later, as I cook dinner for us both, I often wonder what would’ve happened if I had suggested meeting up in Paris that day. We’ve been to the city twice together since – turns out he was lying about liking the Pompidou Centre – but I love the idea that our first date could’ve been in the city of love.

One day I’d like to take Adam to Tenby. If it wasn’t for me being an idiot on that rainy day, who knows whether our paths in the real world would’ve ever crossed.