Thursday, September 04, 2008

Islands in the sun

If you follow the comments under my post about St Helena a few weeks ago, you'll notice that a lovely and unexpected thing happened. Obviously the locals are avid readers of all things Saint-related and were on my post in a flash - first of all someone asked about the archeological dig my friend was on, then a chap got in touch to give me some more background on the situation.

We got into a bit of a chat which ended with me flippantly asking that - should he ever meet a smiley lass from Ayr who was working on the dig - to tell her that I and the rest of the London gang say hi. Blow me if that's not what happened - in a nightclub called Bayside of all places (which I must admitted destroyed the mid-Atlantic paradise fantasy somewhat). Apparently he just wandered up, introduced himself and said something along the lines of "you must be Helen". According to both him (Rob - moderator of the online St Helena portal sthelenanet) and her, the reaction was one of general gob-smackedness, which I must admit made me happy. Had Helen turned round and simply said "oh, yeah, guess you guys were talking on the internet or something" it would have been a bit of an anticlimax.

But as it was, I feel all warm and fuzzy at the thought of using the internet for something other than updating Facebook or looking at saucy pictures - it's created a mutual friend between two people thousands of miles apart, and allowed me to send a little bit of cheer to a friend far away.

It also helps me justify the fact that I have been utterly rubbish in keeping in touch with her since she left.

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