Passport

This is the house we left to go to France over seven years ago, the sale a kind of passport enabling us to start a new life. It’s been sold once again since, and is clearly on the market again now. I’ve always remembered it as a place I enjoyed living – I built a stone wall, dug a pond, sanded floors – but going back awakened no nostalgia, just a peculiar sense of not fitting there any more. Just round the corner, a man passing called out ‘shwmai’ to me. As he receded I eventually recognized him as a former student of mine. However I was feeling, it was still good to be greeted in Welsh. Elsewhere when I tried to speak Welsh with friends, and Teleri’s relatives , French kept coming out. The passport is for returning home in the Midi. A theme which suited the 6th.