No matter where you go – there you are.

August 24, 2010 by
Filed under: Life in New Zealand 

It’s a small world. Never more do yo get that than when you shift yourself half round the world and keep bumping into people from next door.

2 years ago, I became friends with someone it turns out had lived right near Hereford (where I grew up) till they were 8 years old, when their family shifted from the UK to NZ. Which means for about 3 years of my life, we actually lived about 6 miles away from each other. Its one of lifes mysteries to me that we know know each other becuase we live in New Zealand.

Then while hiding away from the world during my “Evony Addiction”, one of my Alliance who lived up in Auckland had done his OE at the PGL Outdoor center Just outside Ross-on-Wye and about 5 minutes drive from where I was living just before we moved here.

Then just last week, the Physio at the gym asked me where I cam from. (It’s the accent – gives me away ever time!)

Now this is not an infrequent query, but fraught with the high possibility that I then have to explain where in the blazes Hereford actually is. I tend to go for “Near Wales”, because even here, with such large links back to the OK, most people are hazy on where anything is other than London.

So I said Herefordshire – and lo and behold he knew where I meant. Turns out he comes from Moreton-on-Lugg, a place I know pretty well, becuase thats where my first Boyfriend lived.  Embarrassingly he looks to be about the same age as us, so he may even have known said boyfriend – but I didn’t dare ask!

I’ve yet to bump into anyone from the village I grew up in (Preston-on-Wye) – I’m pretty sure thats a really good thing though.

And it’s not just us ourselves – 2 lots of friends we made, quite independent of each other, turn out to have lived in the same village as each other back in the UK but at different times.

It’s a funny world.

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Comments

2 Comments on No matter where you go – there you are.

  1. Sophie on Tue, 24th Aug 2010 10:02 pm

    2. Several years ago I was lucky enough to meet hubby’s auntie, who (though Kiwi) lives in Australia. It was crazy enough finding her, as all we knew was her name, current town and the fact that she ran a café. Phone books and asking at the odd shop worked surprisingly well!

    Anyway, she was very proud and knowledgable of her family’s history, and noted that her many brothers had never paid attention to their mum’s stories. When I said that I was from Bournemouth originally, she said, “history repeats itself, then!”

    It turns out that her maternal gran had originally come from Bournemouth too – not exactly a huge town in those days either – after her first husband died in WW1. He had been part of a family rich/famous enough locally that there are still 2 roads named after them. Amazing!

    For me though, half the fascination was also that this white, upper-class British woman had married a full-blooded Maori man, which can’t have been all that common in the 1920s? Let alone the fact that she lived out the rest of her life ion a sheep farm in Otago.. Makes me think that some people just aren’t born where they’re supposed to be, and best wishes to those who find a way to get there.

  2. Avalon on Thu, 26th Aug 2010 3:43 pm

    3. What a truly lovely story! And absolutely brilliant that it has now been passed on.

    I wonder if the sheep farm is still there?

    Hxx

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