Today I went up into the hills to do something that actually matters for our collective future. I went to vote in what is undoubtedly the biggest and most important vote in our history as a nation. We are currently standing at a threshold where we have to decide if we are going to keep surrendering to the decline. For far too long we have been sitting at the bottom of the pile for almost everything that matters. We are currently suffering with the worst schooling and the worst education of all the home nations. Our healthcare system is in a state of decay and our roads are being intentionally ruined by people who clearly do not value the freedom of the open road. Our economy is struggling and it is a rot that has been allowed to spread for way too long.

This was our one chance to try and fix the issues that have been building up under years of the same leadership. It was a chance to vote for the possibility of a none labour Welsh government for the first time ever. I have made no secret of the fact that I want an end to this current regime and today I finally put my mark where my mouth is.

To be born Welsh is to be born privileged with music in your heart and poetry in your soul. But that privilege comes with a heavy responsibility to protect our heritage and our future. We cannot keep allowing an army of clipboard holding jobsworths to manage our decline while they see liability in every footstep and ruin in every policy. I am an INDIVIDUAL and I refuse to be pigeon holed or told to worship at the heel of those who think they are superior. Today was my own small act of defiance against the encroaching dark. I can only hope that when the dealing is done we see the first spark of dawn for a better and more prosperous Wales.

But that is not what this post is about. Not today. No, today is about an actual change, the kind that makes you stop mid stride and wonder if the world has finally decided to surprise you after three decades of doing the same thing in the same way with the same people.

Ever since I moved to this corner of Wales thirty years ago, every vote has followed the same ancient rhythm. The same trek up into the hills, the same slow climb toward the old hall that looks as if it was built by a committee of druids who ran out of enthusiasm halfway through. Inside, the same two venerable guardians of democracy, who appear to have been carved from oak sometime during the reign of Henry the Eighth, sit behind the same table with the same expressions of polite bewilderment.

Nothing ever changes. Not the room. Not the ritual. Not the gentle smell of dust and civic duty. It has always felt less like voting and more like participating in a seasonal rite, as if I should bring an offering of bread and mead to ensure a good harvest. If you want a reminder of how this little pilgrimage has always unfolded, you can wander back through my older ramblings and revisit the scene. You might start with this ONE where I described the whole affair in loving detail, right down to the creaking floorboards and the eternal nod of the two guardians of the register.

But today was different. Today the air felt charged, as if someone had opened a window in a room that had been closed for far too long. Something had shifted. Something had stirred. And for the first time in thirty years, I found myself thinking that perhaps the old hall on the hill was not just a relic of the past, but a doorway into whatever comes next.

The two unchanging guardians of the sacred voting booth were nowhere to be seen. You know the ones I mean. The people who point you toward the pencil that is taped to a piece of string, the pencil that has seen more elections than most politicians, the pencil with which you make your solemn mark on a bit of paper before dropping it into what is essentially a ceremonial bucket. Those guardians. The eternal watchers of the register. The custodians of the sacred tick.

Gone.

In their place stood two young people. Actual young people. Bright eyed. Upright. Awake. The heavy quiet that usually hangs in the room like the breath of an elderly librarian had been replaced with friendliness and chirpiness and even a spark of excitement at the sight of human beings arriving to vote. It was unsettling in the best possible way, like discovering that the ancient stone circle at the top of the hill has suddenly installed a coffee machine.

I do not know what happened to the elder pair. Were they replaced. Did they finally retire. Or did some unfortunate souls who turned up to vote get used in a strange ceremony involving candles and chanting and possibly a wicker man in order to rejuvenate the guardians into younger forms. I am not saying this happened. I am simply saying that if it did, it would explain a lot.

And now the questions begin to whisper at the back of my mind.

Have they always been there.
Will they always be there.
And now that I suspect them, is it even safe for me to ever go back and vote.

Because once you start noticing these things, once you begin to tug at the loose thread of the familiar, you never quite know what might unravel. Perhaps the voting hall is older and stranger than any of us realised. Perhaps the guardians are part of some ancient civic order that predates the council tax. Or perhaps they simply fancied a day off.

Either way, the world has shifted. The ritual has changed. And I find myself wondering what other small miracles or mild terrors await me the next time I climb that hill to cast my vote.