May 3: Cymru - Treherbert

I am watching my five year old niece eat a chocolate ice-cream. It is a beautiful sunny, spring day. The air is full of pollen, and skies are warm and blue. My little niece turns and looks up at me. A smile as wide as the sunshine lights up her little face. Her mouth is smudged and sullied with chocolate. Melting ice cream runs everywhere - over me, over her new clothes, on the floor. She is in a state of absolute bliss, and yet only moments earlier her world was awful - she had tripped and fallen whilst running (despite being told not to run) and grazed her little elbows and knees on the rough tarmac. I marvel at how anchored to the present moment children can be; the trauma of the fall has vanished, soothed away by the intense delight found in enjoying an ice-cream.

Names can reveal a lot about places, people and lives. Take for example, the word 'present'. Does it mean the here-and-now, or simply a gift? Maybe both. Being in the present moment is indeed a precious gift. By being in the present moment we are able to focus fully on whatever Life is trying to give to us now. Being in the present moment allows us to be. We can only ever be in the present moment. The past has already gone, and the future has yet to happen. Only in the present moment can we let go of the past. Only in the present moment can we take steps towards a goal, or a dream. This present moment is all we ever have. Children, if you observe them, know this instinctively, and live in the present moment all the time. It's only under the tutorage of adults that they are taught how to regret things they have done, or how to worry about things that might-yet-not-never happen. Perhaps we, as adults, should be learning from them.

I am now sitting in my local pub on my fifth pint of Guinness. No whisky, yet. Everyone is watching the last moments of Liverpool v Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League Semi-Final. The game has passed normal time, injury time and extra time without a winner. The contest has to be decided on penalites. Liverpool need to score this next penalty to win and progress to the final. The room is silent. There is so much tension in the air. The player runs up. Hits the ball. The hush around me is audible. Time slows down. A millisecond takes an age. I remember seeing a black cat cross my path on the walk here earlier. There was a full moon in the sky, too. Must be lucky, must be lucky. Then, the ball hits the back of the net. The Ninian Stuart Conservative Club in Station Street explodes - cheers erupt, dominoes go flying and I've just leapt ten feet into the air. I couldn't be happier. Absolute bliss. Same as everyone else here - all fixed in that wonder of the present moment. I know there'll be a hangover tomorrow morning, but that's another lifetime away. For now, this is great; perfect.