Trying to keep the excitement out of my voice

Our trip around Snowdonia with Bjarni's parents was very exciting for me, as all the things I used to roll my eyes at as a teenager — like Welsh grammar, and bits of slate with red dragons printed on them — suddenly made me feel enormously proud.

"What does araf mean?" asked his mum, looking at the big white letters painted onto the road.

"That means slow," I explained, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. How wonderful, I thought. Our very own language painted right there onto the road, reminding everybody how exotic and interesting we are!

We stayed in Betws-y-Coed, a small touristy village in the trees, and that night I took Bjarni and his dad for a pint in the pub where I spent most of my teens.

"Have you been here before?" his dad asked me.

"Been here! I was fired from here twice!" I exclaimed, hoping that somebody behind the bar would remember me and come over and say hello, casually speaking Welsh to me, asking how I'd been.

But nobody did, and so we took our drinks outside and sat under the heat lamps, Bjarni and his dad talking computers while I nodded along thoughtfully, peering around the beer garden every so often in the hope that somebody from my past would overhear us. Here I am, I thought. Look at me, everybody, look at me! Bet you never thought I'd get out of North Wales, huh, and yet here I am, returning with two handsome foreigners, chatting away in Icelandic as if it's the most natural thing in the world!

But nobody took any notice of us at all, and so I sipped my drink nervously and tried to predict what the next day's introductions at my parents' house would be like, instead.