…as my life enters the stream of modern Britishness. It turns out that after you have been away from this country for over five years you need to prove that you have connections with your home city in order to gain the benefits of being a citizen. Today I had a chat with a government computer that had great difficulties in understanding my postcode. So it gave me a ringtone for half an hour. It seems as if the government has been farmed out to robots and any civil servant or politician you may see is simply a figment of your deranged imagination. There are moments when I do wonder whether some super computer has taken over the planet and we just don’t know it yet. Or maybe it’s all done with mirrors to try to convince us that they are in control and have our best interests at heart. The Welsh, though, are a kind race. You can tell that before the English came here this was a very egalitarian society. People here care for their own in a rough and ready sort of a way. Life here is much faster than it used to be and people are sharp and streetwise. I met a lovely woman called Charlie today. She was from the west country and had that very friendly way so typical of that part of the world. We talked of permaculture and life, cancer and the future. She inspired me with her idealism and brought a ray of sunshine into my day. Then I drank a beer with a man who cried because his best friend’s son committed suicide at the age of fourteen. This was such a typical Leighton day. Extremes and mystical meetings and bureaucratic dullness. Orwell, Camus and Blake, three for the price of one. So now I am off on the merry journey back to my roots with a one way ticket and a poet’s smile for currency.