Souvy

As some of you already know, I live in Gatineau, QC. It's quite a large city and stretches for about 40km along the Ottawa river.

There is a Brit population but it's at the far west end, miles from me. Since I moved here in 2004, I have bumped into one other Brit resident and that was a decade ago.

My mind got blown on Saturday. I was walking back from the corner store, which is a couple of minutes away. I heard a guy on his driveway talking in English. That is not unusual. After hearing a few words, I clicked that he is a Brit. I introduced myself to my Brit near-neighbour.

Then we both got slack-jawed. We're from the same town in England, from the same neighbourhood and from adjacent roads.

What are the odds?

Atlantic Xpat

He's clearly a stalker. Avoid. Perhaps you should move?

Souvy

Nah. He's been there for several years. I'd seen him before, just never heard him speak until then.

BristolUK

Probably not as great as Leicester winning the league.

Souvy

I didn't know they are an NHL team......

Shirtback

No idea about the odds, but I've experienced (& heard of other) enough gobsmacking coincidences/encounters* over my expat years in various places to no longer freak too much about it.

Still makes me smile, mostly, in an "it's a small world" sort of way ....


*Some of which may or may not be BE related .

Siouxie

Me too! Including the woman in the next room at Matilda (then) Maternity Hospital on The Peak in Hong Kong being a girl I had worked with at Bristol Platform 1 Club behind the bar, 8 years earlier, lol. Both our babies were born on the same day.

Small world indeed

Mr Bean

I met an old lady here the one day, she was from half a mile down the road from where I grew up out in the sticks.

izzi81

When we emigrated to NS we moved to an area with a pretty low UK immigrant population. About 6 months after we moved I met a couple who I had chatted to here in BE when they moved to the same area of NS. I hadn't met them before they moved to Canada, and it turned out they were from the same village in Scotland that my partner's grandfather lives in. The population of that village is just under 1300 people. Very bizarre!

BristolUK

Dunno about small world...that's the sort of thing that would be made into a horror movie **
Or a comedy, like a modern day Start the Revolution Without Me.

**probably the explanation for that hot tub apparition

bats

I met my cousin's godfather in Istanbul. We were staying in the same hotel.

BristolUK

I'd like to claim sitting at The Sunset Bar in Playa de las Americas, Tenerife and then my mate and his bride on their honeymoon, staying at Los Christianos turning up out of the blue.

But we arranged it.

MillieF

A girlfriend of mine had photos on the tube in Leytonstone some years ago, of her leaving party from Agip Oil in Libya....the woman next to her...who she didn't know....and I hadn't seen for a decade.....said. " that's Pamela". (me) and they both discussed me ( probably in a negative fashion for hours). Really how small is the world!

AlliF

My small world coincidence is making best friends with a girl 2 years younger than me at my tiny country primary school (total 13 pupils) and finding out 6 years later that we are actually sisters.
We were adopted out to different families in different cities, who then moved to within a few miles of each other and enrolled in the same school.

quiltman

I was queuing for check in at Oslo and accidentally kicked my case forward, hitting the guy in front of me. Went to apologise and it was my UK next door neighbour!

Another time I was sitting in a Dennys in San Francisco and my old sales manager from a previous UK firm walked in!!