Extraordinary meeting

Saturday 21st July 2007. We’re on holiday in Sorrento and had planned to visit Herculaneum next Tuesday. Yesterday, however, we changed our plans and decided to go early this morning. I immediately had a strong feeling (a presentiment, I suppose) that we’d run into someone we know – probably the parents of a child at the independent girls’ school where my wife works. En route by train this morning, I repeated my conviction that we’d bump into someone we know. We arrived at the site just as they were opening, and found the place magically deserted. For some while we wandered from house to house without seeing a soul. And then we found ourselves in a courtyard with another couple and their teenage son. Like us, they were heavily disguised in hats and sunglasses. On the next occasion when we crossed paths with them, we heard the father speak. I whispered to my wife that he sounded very like a friend whom we hadn’t seen for about fourteen years – we had all worked together and often socialised with them. A few minutes later, at the baths, we had the chance to get closer to them, and it was clear that these were, indeed, our old friends – with the fourteen-year-old son who had been only a bump last time we’d seen them. I sidled up next to my friend, cleared my throat and said “Dr B*****?”. Poor chap nearly jumped out of his skin! It turned out that they’d also decided to go to Herculaneum at the last minute, since they were booked to sail from Naples to Sicily this afternoon. It was a very happy, though brief, reunion. Now what were the chances … etc etc? (Greg)