Got up bright and early in order to get some large print questionnaires run off for those who have problems reading the ordinary "small" print - the expectation being that there�ll be more than a few grannies at the Eisteddfod watching "little Juan" performing.

I thought about whether it would be better to be fancy or blunt - being blunt won the day and I just increased the font size on the questions so that they could be read from Wales, and then printed them out at the cyber-cafe - cost me a fortune in paper!

Went and dropped them off at the photocopiers, with instructions that I would pick them up at about 4ish on the way to Gaiman.

Did the usual stuff in the daytime, checking e-mail again, going down to the gym to stand around a bit and then back home to get everything ready for the evening.

Picked up the new large print qaires at 4pm, in the expectation that a bus would be hurtling round the corner any minute. It wasn�t, so I had a half hour wait at the bus station before the trip down to Gaiman.

Arriving in Gaiman, I felt a little peckish, so went to find somewhere open and ended up having a pizza and conversation in Breuddwyd, before making my way round to the Eisteddfod location in the Municipal Gym, a big hall which holds about 500 people with no difficulty.

Events hadn�t started yet, but after the wrong time had been given in the paper and on the radio, people started turning up early, so I was asked to act as bouncer for a little while, until they opened up.

Being clever (just for once), I turned the situation to my advantage, and got the waiting hordes to complete some questionnaires for me ;)

It all kicked off a little bit late, but after the Argentinian national anthem and the bilingual introduction, it all started swinging with the young hopefuls reciting, singing and dancing their way through the evening.

Given that I�m getting old and have never competed in one of these things in Wales, I had a special interest in two of the competitions in my final year as a "youth" (yes, I know, I find it hard to believe that I�m still classed as "young" rather than cynical).

Typically, both of them, the Spanish-English translation and the Spanish-Welsh translation, were amongst the final verdicts of the evening, which meant that I had to miss the last bus back to Trelew to see what the judges thought of my efforts.

Ooh, you could cut the tension with a knife, until the Comodoro Rivadavia under-14s dance troupe exploded with delight when they won the folk dancing about a curly sheep (or something like that). Then they went to bed (the official line), or out on the town (the unofficial story).

To cut a long story short, I won both competitions that I entered, feeling strangely fraudulent in winning translation competitions. It was pointed out that it was hardly in the same category as someone spending 15 years being taught how to sing well, so I felt better about that, and being the only entrant in the Welsh translation (very sad in itself), it wasn�t that I was stopping someone else from taking home a prize or two.

And, to be honest, at the upper age ranges it was pretty much the same people winning everything - poor Sara from Trevelin came all the way there and was the only entrant in two competitions.

Apart from some very nice comments from the stage about my translation skills (oh, and they liked my pseudonym - El Dragon Amarillo, the Yellow Dragon), I got a book of Martin Fierro�s poetry (famous Argentinian author), a little medal and a wooden Chubut and some certificates.

Hey, it�s not everyone who can say that they won something in the Argentinian Youth Eisteddfod!

It all came to an end around midnight and I blagged a lift home with Adrian from "Gwanwyn" to Trelew, getting some sleep before the second day.