FOLLOW Gwent Olympian Jamie Baulch as he learns Welsh as part of the S4C programme cariad@iaith.

DAY 2

I got up this morning after a night of heavy rainfall and a decent night's sleep but got woken up by the crew playing animal noises outside the door. I initially thought it was the maid before I realised it was the camera crew. I don't think there's much chance of a lie in at this place.

We went to the lesson straight away, a long day blitzing us with all sorts of different types of things. Ioan was reading a book in a weird way, and they performed the book in a very colourful way. Also quite soothing at the same today, and I thought I was going to fall asleep.

The lesson lasted two hours. You think it's going to be easy but it really is quite intense! The lessons are based around a story called 'Helynt y Goedwig' (The Forest Adventures) but I'm not sure what's going exactly. Although you can feel the words wash over you and I like having a go at pronouncing words like 'arth' (bear) 'symud' (to move) and 'mochyn' (pig).

It definitely is a workout for the mouth!

Today's activity was playing touch rugby with Machynlleth Rugby Club and putting our Welsh into practice.

Despite the rain, it was a good match and the opposition were a force to be reckoned with. We learnt words such as 'pasio' (to pass), 'rhedeg' (to run) and 'cais' (try).

I was trying to reign in my competitive side, but it was Derek of all people who scored the winning try! I ended up with the first wooden spoon of my career.

A really nice way of ending a productive day.