A Bibliophile's Paradise!

 I went for a day and could have stayed for a month; Gladstone's Library (previously known as Saint Deiniol's) in Hawarden in North Wales had been on my list of "must-do" visits for a long time but I shall certainly be back there again before too long. It's the UK's only Prime Ministerial Library. The collections were gifted to the nation by the four times holder of the office, William Ewart Gladstone, and the building was funded through public subscription at the beginning of the last century. It's a glorious red sandstone neo-Gothic design, with three reading rooms, 26 residential bedrooms and a restaurant, all set in beautiful grounds. It hosts a lot of interesting talks, courses and workshops but you can also just visit to do a mini-tour (check their website for details). I was fascinated by the collection of Gladstone's own books. To say his reading tastes were catholic is an understatement - and, according to his diaries, he read between 21 - 22,000 books in his lifetime! A lot of them were brought together in the 1880s and the average book in the collection is 150 years old - but they're all available to read there in the library. It feels just such an incredible privilege to have access to them.

I was in North Wales undertaking a couple more of my mini-pilgrimages. As I'd expected, the good weather didn't deign to extend to my time away! But it had begun to pick up a bit for a couple of days this week when I was walking the Ann Griffiths Way, another long planned expedition. If you're from outside Wales, you may not have come across the poems and hymns of Ann Griffiths; although she died aged only 29 in 1805 she became an enormously important figure here in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The walk takes in places significant in her life and passes through absolutely stunning, almost deserted countryside. Most of the path runs by the River Vyrnwy; riverside walks are always my favourites, and at this time of the year the woods and hedgerows are alive with violets, primroses and bluebells. A very special walk to undertake.

But now it's back to the desk and back down to some serious writing - just as the promised heatwave materializes! 

Out and about

 Since that last post winter has given way to spring; the snowdrops have come and gone, as have most of the daffodils, but the magnolias and azaleas are now in full bloom - this one is just outside my writing room and I can see it from the desk. Cowslips are beginning to give the fields that lovely lemon-yellow haze and the bluebells and anemones are out in the woods. I'm just about surfacing from a difficult couple of months to find the world alive and busy (though the least said about the political situation the better ...) Hopefully the trials that beset my research last year are well and truly behind me - so it's onwards and upwards.

The lovely weather over the last couple of weeks has been ideal for "travelling with intent to places of significance" as I'm defining the pilgrimages I'm undertaking for the new book. I've had fascinating visits to places as diverse as Dylan Thomas's old school, Coleg Trefeca (the home of Hywel Harris and the cradle of the 18th century Revival), several holy wells in South Wales and the Strike! exhibition at the National Museum. In the coming weeks I've got several mini-pilgrimages coming up further afield. I'm particularly keen to follow in the poet R. S. Thomas's footsteps and to undertake the Anne Griffiths walk near Lake Vyrnwy. I could do with the weather holding up for both of those, though I doubt that it will. 

A quick doodle on the magnetic board
at the Dylan Thomas Centre

Writing up the pilgrimages has had to fit in around the actual visits, but I'm very much looking forward to a block of undisturbed time to make some more concerted progress on that front. I'm also looking forward to running a couple of workshop days this coming term, one in the lovely Wye-side village of Tintern, in the shadow of the very atmospheric ruin of the Cistercian abbey. However, I'll be very much a learner myself before that - I'm off to the national language centre at Nant Gwrtheyrn again in a few weeks to battle on with my Welsh. I've been reading a lot of Welsh poetry recently - but let's just say that I can't see my own attempts there ever leading to an Eisteddfod chair!