When I discovered that there is a website that lists the dates of birth of all politicians in Italy, I could not have imagined the moving experience that this would have led to.

Pierluigi Biondi was one of these politicians: mayor of the beautiful, small medieval town of Villa Sant’Angelo, perched on the foothills of the Apennines. He has been central in rebuilding the lives of the population after a catastrophic earthquake laid much of the town to rubble in 2009.
The welcome that Pierluigi and his colleagues extended to me and the team is hugely appreciated.  We also extend our thanks to the academics and students from the architecture faculty at the University of Bologna who showed us around the devastated ‘red zone’ and explained the human and material cost of the tragedy.

In July, I travelled back to Scandinavia to meet Kari,  olympian and former Norwegian  handball international  in Trondheim.

In May I travelled to the Netherlands and, at the World Bodybuilding and Physique  Sports Federation’s Walter’s Open in Etten-Leur. There, I met Time Twin #6, Sandra Van de Kamp, co-owner of Balance Personal Training in Zeist and model physique champion.

A truly fascinating day and thank you to Sandra for her time and inviting us into this world.

Searching the internet for people born on 1 December 1974 – a habit, which, by this point was taking up a worryingly large amount of my free time, had revealed that the drummer in the Number 1 Smith’s tribute band: The Smyths  was a Time Twin.

I therefore embarked on the shortest of all Time Twin journeys – the 25 miles from London to The Horn pub in St. Albans to meet Tom and listen to their set!

Any sense of panic about meeting another Time Twin was alleviated chatting to Tom. Thanks from us to this charming man, who was happy to answer all the questions I did ask, even those that demonstrated my less than encyclopaedic knowledge of The Smiths’ back catalogue .  Ok, think that’s enough Smith’s title references: heaven knows I’m miserable now that I have stooped to doing that!

Huge thanks to Tom for his time, especially in the minutes leading up to his performance – which was great!

So the Time Twin adventure was up and running.  Meeting Dan in New York had been a great experience, and to my surprise, his lifestyle and outlook mirrored mine in a number of ways.  I had now caught the Time Twin bug, but could I meet any more?

Chatting to a  tourist in New York about the project, I learned that, to my amazement, data protection legislation in Sweden is very different to that in the UK.  It would be unthinkable, for instance, in Britain, for the name, date of birth and address of every citizen to be published online, but this is just what happens in Sweden (and, I later found out in Norway).  Only one thing to do then: send every Time Twin in the country a letter and an invite to meet up!  Again, to my surprise and delight, three people responded.

So, in January 2012, I travelled to the cold of the Swedish winter and was warmed by the hospitality of IT professionals Daniel and Timo in Stockholm  and Kristina – a lawyer living the 1950s model town of Vällingby.  Speaking with Time, Daniel and Kristina gave me a fascinating perspective into Swedish life and culture – into the importance given to family , the pressure this can put on people in their young adulthood, and the implicit contract between the government and the people to provide world class services, in return for high taxation.

I was delighted to hear in May 2012 the Kristina’s first book
‘Som man sår’, about her garden  has been published to great reviews.