Me & my new mate @MikejulietBravo (a tale of the power and reach of social media)

The green green grass of home was calling and from the 21:15 Paddington to Swansea train I tweeted " Just leaving London Paddington - please no delays FGW, it's been a tough week".

It had been a hell of a week, 2 days training in Swansea then 2 days in Luton arriving at around 22:00 at the hotel to run a 2 day course the following day. but now it was nearly over and I was homeward bound.

I tweeted as I counted the stations down: Reading, Didcot Parkway and Swindon. It was all going to time. I would be back in Cardiff at around 23:30.

" Ladies and gentlemen this is your train manager speaking" oh oh, I had tweeted too soon. I can't remember the reason for the delay or anything like that. Back to tweetdeck to post something about FGW, when I noticed a tweet from someone who follows me. "stuck outside Bristol Parkway".

"Are we on the same train?" I tweeted.

"Yes" came back the reply. We'd never met before but somehow had ended up following each other on Twitter.

"Shall I come and say hello?" he tweeted. So 2 minutes later we were shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries and business cards. He was travelling to Swansea.

I hope to get to know @MikeJulietBravo a bit better but in the meantime I wanted to share this with you as I thought it showed the power and reach of social media and that was going to be the

end of this blog posting. However ..............

Last Wednesday I was travelling back from Doncaster and got off at Bristol Parkway at 21:30 for the final leg of my journey back across the bridge. Walked into the waiting room, turned round to see @MJB coming through the door. The next hour gave us a chance to get to know each other a bit better and he has invited me to join his network.

Do you know what, I think me & @MikeJulietBravo are going to become friends & all thanks to social media !