It’s a small world

[martyn94]

I discovered today that our postman here used to be my sister’s postman in Paris, and mine from time to time (he’d spotted the address on some redirected mail). Which is of no general interest at all.

[Kate]

I'm interested. It fascinates (and horrifies) me that the world seems to get smaller as I get older. My husband, who is a pisciniste, found out last year that one of his clients in the Vallespir used to be his old primary school teacher in Paris - and she remembered him!!

I was once sitting in a packed café in the Place du Tertre in Paris, and the waiter kept giving me funny looks. In the end, he came over to me and told me that I used to teach him when I lived near La Rochelle. At the time, he was a little chap, but he'd gotten big!!!!

No general interest at all to anyone, but I enjoyed the memory so hey.....

[martyn94]

Two random thoughts. It’s one of the many pleasures of small-town and rural France that you can actually talk to your postman. From what he told me, I must have crossed him multiple times working our street in Paris, but it never struck me (he just stuck the post in a communal letter-box in the lobby). In hindsight he has seemed vaguely familiar, but that is probably just false memory.

Secondly, coincidences are much more frequent than you naively think they should be. If you want to know why, Google is your friend. I remember bumping into my biochemistry tutor in a butcher’s queue in “Dordogneshireâ€￾ back in the 70s. It seemed surprising at the time, but if you think who typically took their holidays there at the time, something like that was entirely likely.

[sue and paul]

I have one or two such instances...

Here in St André we have become good friends with our daughter-in-law's former teacher in UK.

In the 80's on a hot day in London I got chatting with a lady over a much needed coffee. She was heading back to Christchurch NZ the following day, and it turned out she was my father's next-door neighbour. He moved there in the 70's.

And more recently at Béziers airport I was stopped by a lady who was the mother of a former student in Derbyshire.

Coincidences?.... or as Martyn94 says, maybe we are all of an ilk and "something like that was entirely likely".

[Florence]

Where I went to boarding school in Switzerland, we had an Irish nun. A couple of years later, living in Chelmsford, I went on a day trip to London and saw the same nun in Liverpool station. She was just on her way to see her family in Ireland.

[Lanark Lass]

Must be something about the PO My husband has met 4 ex-pupils in St Andre. 2 of them were visiting the house next door. In Northamptonshire he has met 2. The school was on Wellingborough.

[sue and paul]

....and possibly the other 2 were visiting us?

[Lanark Lass]

That is true!

[rainbow]

I was on the bus to Perpignan the other day the person sitting opposite to me was the same person that had being traveling on the bus one year ago although he was behind me !

[martyn94]

I was on the bus to Perpignan the other day the person sitting opposite to me was the same person that had being traveling on the bus one year ago although he was behind me !

A colleague of mine was one of a regular bridge four (which he otherwise didn’t know) on the 07- something from Woking to Waterloo. I couldn’t even play Snap at that time of day. Or more accurately. I’d probably play Snap even worse than I’d play bridge (unless, maybe, I’d started the night before). I did once play brag through until that time of day, and came out about £2 ahead (in the days when £2 was a useful supplement to a student grant). I’ve never played cards for money since.