I'll be running a couple of nature writing workshops near Rhayader this weekend coming, and a couple the weekend after that. The first's at 6pm this Friday 14th in Pant-y-dwr, followed by 2pm Saturday 15th in Elan Village, 6pm Friday 21st in Cwmdeuddwr and 2pm Friday 22nd at Abbey Cwmhir. The idea is to come up with some short pieces of writing about the area for the 'In This Place' exhibition in Rhayader Museum. I've been asked as well to write something about Maen Serth, a standing stone on Esgair Dderw - hence the picture.

You can contact Carad here

As any fule kno, there is at present only one book to read, namely Let Their Fame Be Great, the much-praised debut of my much-praised brother. A history of the highlanders of Caucasus Mountains and a travelogue ranging as widely as their diaspora - from the steppes of Central Asia to the internment camps of Poland - it is a book as seamless as it is fearless. The title is a reference to a myth in which the first people in the Caucasus were given a choice by their god: either they could live long, comfortable lives and never know glory on the battlefield or else they could live short lives, but become famous for their courage. "If our lives are to be short," they replied, "then let our fame be great."

Have a look at the new New Welsh Review, if you get the chance. There's an extended 'Graveyards' in there, among other fine things...

Thanks again to Books From Lithuania, who were kind enough to invite me back to Vilnius last week for the launch of their anthology, Vilniaus ikvepti - a feast for polyglots everywhere, and quite the challenge for editors, comprising stories in seven different languages and various translations of same. Ah, Europe! Vilnius in November is quite a different prospect to Vilnius in May, although the snow had yet to arrive. My story ‘The Graveyards Of Vilnius’ (which will also be in the spring edition of New Welsh Review) is May all over; the harmony of ideas I found in the central parks of the city, many of which were cemeteries bulldozed by the Soviets, could never have worked in rain yet colder than the rain here in the Brecon Beacons. That said, I went to the famous Antakalnis cemetery on Friday, and just as the Welsh hills are most themselves if not most beautiful in the blasting bloody rain, so the memorials to the victims of the Second World War had a fitting gauntness among the leafless birches and bedraggled flowers, and with water dripping from the brim of my hat. So, the Faculty Of Philology welcomed me to Vilnius University and Books From Lithuania had me interviewed along with three of the fine translators involved in the project, and it was lovely to see the great Inga, Gintaute and Kotryna again, and all manner of things was well…

Except for the wretched rail service of this country (if you will excuse a quick rant), which charged me £132.57 for a return ticket from Abergavenny to Gatwick Airport and then delivered me two hours late and so too late for my plane. The incompetence is so breathtaking that I wonder it doesn’t bring about full-scale revolt. The result was that I not only had to buy another plane ticket for £153, I then had to remain in the airport and lie down on a bench so as to check in at 4:30 the next morning, fly two hours and then go straight to Vilnius University to address the students in a state of hopeless exhaustion, and since no single train - no single company - was a whole hour late nobody was actually responsible, and if that’s not an argument for the renationalisation and reunification of the railways and having everybody involved locked into churches for a year on stale bread and the water dripping from the holes in the roof to pray for their miserable souls then CHRIST.

In truth, I was knackered already due to the arrival six weeks ago (October 9th) of the magnificent Edwyn Bullough, our extremely noisy little son. So, I’ll end this on a happy note, because that’s just what he is, and a photo of C, he and me:

Thousand thanks to all who came along to Newfoundland last weekend. I shall remember superlative readings, magnificent tent with coloured rope lights running lengthways, Mike Parker shouting the last five minutes of his set through a neighbouring PA system where others might have capitulated and slunk off to the bar, Deborah Kay Davies and Norman Schwenk clinging to their sofa as firmly as their wine glasses, James Miller reading the darkest, most twisted bit of 'Lost Boys' and discovering for all of us that we had a place where we could read properly without swallowing f-words or offending anyone, Jasper Fforde's account of the forthcoming Fforde Ffiesta in Swindon, where his version of 'Hamlet backwards' will be performed, with every murdered Hamlet character restored to life as a zombie at the start (sample line: 'To not be, or not not to be'), the expressions of the many battered punters who happened to sit down in a corner and got themselves entranced for half an hour, and all the rest of an exceptionally busy three days. I shall hope that we get to do it all again next year...