Daily photos no. 64: Welsh Winter Wonderland…in spring

The main conference in my field is the Association for Welsh Writing in English annual event (though it's much more bilingual than the title implies). Tied to Easter dates, it's temporally peripatetic yet until now geographically static: held every year in Neuadd Gregynog, a rambling Victorian mansion in beautiful mid-Wales (as seen on Iolo's sections of Springwatch) almost entirely devoid of phone signal. My favourite year was 2013: the conference itself is always brilliant, but the weather was particularly inclement - heavy snow for days on end in mid-March. My favourite weather in any case, and it added a frisson of excitement to events as people wondered whether they'd make it to – or from – Gregynog. Being a healthy mix of academics and independent scholars, it's one of the few conferences where you can always have a discussion about this year's lambing - made especially urgent in 2013 because the lambs were already quite advanced before the cold snap brought such heavy snow.

Beyond the bounds of natural empathy for those with ovine and other responsibilities, I was delighted. The world could get along without me if, heaven forfend, I was trapped on a country estate with only people I liked and an entire library to sustain me. Life outside was frozen and silent like Willoughby Chase or Seekings. All that was missing to complete the atmosphere was a body in the library (at times there were bodies in the library but they can be put down to intellectual exhaustion or even perhaps over-indulgence in the cellar bar).

I wandered outside whenever I could, especially before breakfast when it was just me and the sheep. Not solely for the peace and quiet - getting up at 5.30 meant beating the queue for the ancient bathrooms a quarter mile from your room and not surprising your PhD examiner in his pyjamas queuing in the corridor.

Alyce von Rothkirch's hand-made Blodeuwedd bag

M Wynn Thomas, one of the aforesaid examiners

One of the many books launched that year

Tilt the head backwards and the chain opens a secret portal into Annwn.