Never tell me the odds

As I was walking along the street today, I found myself wondering about the likelihood of randomly encountering a familiar face amongst the crowds. I also tried to remember when the last time such a thing had happened to me, if ever. The closest I came was during one of my first trips to London, about 9 years ago, when I found myself in a terrible rush trying to get to Kings Cross in order to catch the last train to Edinburgh after what had turned out to be a quite ghastly day. I'd ended up in a throwing myself on tube carriage in a last ditch attempt to reach the station on time. I found an available seat (no easy task on the tube in rush hour) and slumped down in it, contemplating the rotten turn the day had taken. I then looked up to realise that the person sitting directly across from me looked remarkably like Vinay, the sole resident of the city familiar to me at that time. The similarity was easily explained by the fact that it was indeed Vinay.

The coincidence has pleased me ever since.

As for my wonderings earlier today, they were rudely interrupted when an ex-colleague from a few years ago popped his head of the window of a passing car and waved briefly before disappearing off into the distance. I now believe the likelyhood of such an encounter is probably a lot higher than I initially thought...