i suppose that, from having spent a part of my childhood amongst people with a welsh way of speaking and thinking, i must have become both sensitized and de-sensitized to some aspects of welshness
consequently i was neither dismayed by the people i encountered last week, nor downhearted by the dilapidation of the towns
indeed, i found myself thinking how much fun it might be to live in a nice little terrace with welsh neighbours on either side ...
tom jones on the one side, perhaps, and catherine zeta-jones on the other !