A Friendly Face In The Middle Of Nowhere

In the summer of 2011, I was on a family holiday in the Scottish Highlands - we had identified a quiet spot, off the beaten track close to the small village of Glenelg. Glenelg is close to the southern end of Skye. There is a small ferry which carries around 6 cars at a time from Glenelg to Skye, and we took this with the intention of doing a little exploring. After a couple of minutes driving on Skye, the drive-shaft of our car snapped! We had no idea what was wrong, but the car was now out of action - we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere on a single track road which led from an obscure ferry landing place. There was no mobile phone signal available! So, there was nothing for it but to head back to the ferry and ask for advice/assistance. On the way back to the ferry, we were met by a group of four people walking up the track towards us - one of whom looked decidedly familiar, and indeed was a work colleague - his office is three offices down from mine (in Rotherham, South Yorkshire). We were both astonished by this and started discussing where we were staying ... "Glenelg" "Oh yes, we are too - well not exactly in it, about half a mile up the road from it" "So are we!" In fact they were staying in the next cottage along from us - perhaps 200 yards away. It is perhaps more surprising that we hadn't bumped into them in the four days prior to this.