It's a Small World

It never ceases to amaze me how small the world is. I remember once, many years ago when I was at University in St Andrews in Scotland. I was in my second year there, and as I looked at the lists of new students, I saw that one person had a name that was clearly Finnish, so I decided to go and introduce myself. In fact in turned out that despite his name, he had been brought up in the US and had never even visited Finland. He mentioned though that he had once met a Finnish girl who was on an exchange programme in the States and had got on well with her. I asked out of curiosity if he remembered where she came from... and he did, from a town near Oulu in the north of the country. I was intrigued by this as my family come from this region too, and it only took a couple more questions until I discovered that the girl he was talking about was actually my own cousin!

Last week I was with two of my daughters, Saskia and Lucie, buying them winter jackets in Forssa (just under 30km from here). I got talking to the lady working in the shop and she told me that she was just closing and was quite keen to shut the shop so she could start her weekend. She said she had a bit of a drive to get home, so I asked where she lived. She told me that she lived in Somero, and as we came from the same town I asked whereabouts she lived. I could not believe it when I eventually discovered that she not only came from the same street as me...but that she was in fact my next door neighbour! Although I have got to know several of our neighbours, my path had never crossed Minna's before, and I had only ever seen her from a distance when one or both of us was mowing the lawn, so you can imagine how surprised I was to meet her for the first time while buying a jacket in Forssa.

And then today a similar thing happened yet again. There is an organisation called the Finn-Guild Association which exists for people with Anglo-Finnish connections. They have many valuable programmes designed at promoting Anglo-Finnish relations http://www.finn-guild.org/ In addition, four times a year they publish a magazine called the Horisontti. Many years ago I wrote an article for this magazine and I have long thought that I would like to write another, so this morning I gave them a call. I spoke to the editor, a man called Ossi Laurila, and explained my idea. I also told him that I had just started writing this blog. Only at this point did it emerge that in fact he came from Somero himself. Not only that, but it then turned out that we appeared on the same radio programme twenty years ago in the days when I was working as a disc jockey in Helsinki. I hope we have the chance to meet this summer when he visits and so we can catch up properly over a coffee. I am sure we all have stories like these, but it certainly feels as though the world is getting smaller all the time! So just in case any Somerolaiset stumble across this posting by chance...here are some photos of the town to remind you how pretty it is here!