I think about 18 months after a move is a good time to begin to reflect on what has happened. It is particularly appropriate as this week I have missed Bartley Green in Birmingham as they have celebrated the life of one of their saints. I did not always think he was one mind, but then saints appear in surprising places.

I did not appreciate the seismic shift there is in moving from one nation to another, although I have loved (nearly) every minute of learning the Welsh language and engaging in Welsh culture.

I perhaps did not appreciate just how different the Church in Wales would be from the Church of England. You would be surprised by how I might articulate that.

I was not prepared for how hard it would be to start again, and how achievements elsewhere would count for nothing in a new environment. I will think a fourth time before moving again to a completely new environment.

I was not prepared for breath taking natural beauty of Anglesey nor for rurality of urban Holyhead.

I did not expect to at one and the same time miss England, especially Sheffield where I have not lived for over half my life, or to feel as Welsh.

I did not expect to be as connected with the saints of old and yet feel so different from them. After all what have I got in common with Cybi, a stubborn, prickly man who annoyed people who was defined by his region, in his case Cornwall rather than Yorkshire?

I did expect to work hard, probably not this hard… and I probably expected it to be easier. Wales, I thought, would be easier for the gospel to thrive than in England.

… and I did not expect to feel so rooted and yet rootless….

But I am on the whole glad to be here.

Bendith