Family Reunion

We are from North Shropshire and were on our "once in a lifetime world tour" and reached Rotorua in North Island New Zealand for a one night stopover. We checked in to our hotel and as it was my husband's birthday we arranged to eat early in the hotel restaurant so that we could go out and do as much sightseeing as possible. The booking was in my name ( I have maintained my maiden name Thorley ) so when we walked in to the hotel restaurant the waitress saw my name and suggested that she added our meal bill to the "group booking" bill. We explained that we were not part of a group and had booked independently. She looked surprised and said "I just automatically thought you were part of the big family reunion eating here tonight seeing as you have the same name" We then discovered that all the Thorleys from all over New Zealand had arranged to have a reunion -the only one ever organised-in that hotel at that time of the evening as the eldest members of the family who were in their 90s who lived in Rotorua wouldn't have to travel far. For my husband who is a massive athletics fan the icing on the cake was that the organiser of the reunion was Gavin Thorley who ran for New Zealand in the Munich Olympics. Oh joy!