There is something exhilarating and warming about returning to somewhere you once called home - even if it was only for two years or so 30 or so years ago - it is akin to visiting an old friend, one you had an near-intimate and revealing relationship with, one that still invokes memories at the very mention.

So, after leaving Snowdonia and Meirionnydd many years ago with a library of fond memories and having had just one brief - and warm, welcoming visit since - I journeyed back to North Wales with my bag brim full of memories and the urge to embrace an old friend.

I tried to reconnect with an ancient, lyrical language - which once was a difficult friend and now alas is a stranger - and the surprising discovery that once again memory is a very poor road map. Why are places not exactly where I left them?

Some places are etched so deeply in the memory they will never fade - Caernarfon’s superb castle, Snowdon’s towering peak, the deep, dark slate mines, ever-changing countryside and, of course, that welcome.