An excuse for a holiday!

Looking along the Mawddach Estuary to Barmouth Bridge

We may be taking a break from The Writer's Room over the summer but there's certainly no break from writing for the radio. I've just  started putting together a series of short programmes on travels in Wales. It's proving a really enjoyable project - the research especially! It's such a pleasure to revisit old haunts, explore new ones and unearth the photos, notes and diaries kept by previous travelers, my own family included. The great weather of recent days has definitely shown the country to advantage - because, o bod yn onest (to be honest) the odd damp day here is not unknown - how else are the hills to be so striking, the valleys so verdant?!

A few years ago the wonderful, now sadly late Nigel Jenkins really enthused me with his writing and teaching on psycho-geography. Perhaps you've come across Seren's "The Real .." series, books like Nigel's "The Real Gower", "The Real Port Talbot" by Lynne Rees or "The Real Newport" by Ann Drysdale; they're guide books with a difference, seeking out and investigating the oddities, the everyday, the unexpected places and people that conventional books ignore. I'm hoping that our radio series can take and present a similarly slant view, can surprise and interest those who don't know the country, can be celebrated by those who do.

So last week a visit to Aberdyfi took in the standard trips (Port Meirion, Cader Idris etc) and the "roads less taken" - listening to a talk on the work of the local branch of the National Search and Rescue Dogs Association (so often deployed in Snowdonia), watching fledglings make their amazing first flights at the Dyfi Osprey Project, investigating the history of Ballast Island in Porthmadog Harbour, trekking to the tiny church at Llandecwyn, part of the Small Pilgrim Places Network. Time and funds will only run to more local research in the next month or so, I'm afraid, but we're so lucky living here in south east Wales as well - with the Wye Valley literally on our doorstep and the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains within the hour, I'm not complaining!

The nature reserve at Dol Idris