About 10 years ago my husband Ian was in a neighbouring immigration queue at Tehran airport to a guy he worked with when they both worked for the same company a few years previously. Both had left and gone their separate ways, plus our homes were only about 20 miles apart. As he used to say, nobody arrives in Iran sober when making a long stay, as you cannot drink when there. So, courtesy of the Lufthanse frequent flyers' lounge at Frankfurt, around the hall echoed the drunken, whisky fuelled cry of "Tony, what the f***ing hell are you doing here?"

And Badger and I found out we used to go to school on opposite sides of the same little street at the same time, 'cept he was the year above me, it turns out. I was at St.Anne's RC and he was at Hardwick Square, both in Buxton.

Andrea