A Dull Woman's Van Life

Date: This Week

Some weeks refuse to follow a neat thread. No grand adventures, no mountain ridges, no sweeping plans — just a scattering of moments that land softly, like leaves on a slow December breeze.

But there was a sunrise on Thursday.
One of those rare winter firestorms that bursts across the sky without warning, painting the horizon in golds and tangerines, the kind that makes you stop mid-step and forget whatever noise was rattling around your head. I hadn’t been walking much lately, but that morning light felt like a gentle summons — a reminder that even the quiet weeks still have edges that glow.

Saturday brought a different kind of warmth. Pepper met her new cousin, Norman, and the pair trotted along the trail like old souls reunited. There’s a special joy in watching dogs form friendships — unfiltered, uncomplicated, wonderfully daft. The walk wasn’t dramatic or long, but it felt good to move, to listen to paws crunching over frosted ground, to breathe in air that tasted faintly of winter.

Then came an afternoon with dear friends, the kind that fills the room with laughter. Four of us, swapping stories, teasing each other, and feeling that unmistakable ease that only exists in the company of people who know you well. Joy doesn’t always shout; sometimes it settles in your chest like a warm stone.

And then — Monday.
A walk that barely left the night behind. The sky stayed heavy and low, swallowing the hills in thick darkness. For a moment I caught the flick of a white tail — deer, perhaps — but the world was so dim that Pepper and I might have wandered within touching distance of wildlife and never known it. The rain was relentless, a soaking, sideways kind of rain that laughs at waterproofs and makes even the hardiest camera retreat into its case.

Musbury Brook, usually my quiet morning sanctuary, had transformed completely. The gentle water that trails over our favourite rock seat had become a furious rush, churning and foaming, the ground itself surrendering to the flood. There was no sunrise to watch, only the roar of water insisting on its presence.

Maybe that’s why the book has stayed untouched for a few weeks.
My creativity has always been rooted in the landscape — in light, in movement, in wild things glimpsed on the edges of the day. And when the world closes in under cloud and rain, it’s harder to find the spark. Inspiration sometimes feels like those deer in the dark: close enough to sense, too shadowed to truly see.

But even in a week like this, something stirs.
Sunrise fire.
New paws on old paths.
Friendship that wraps around you like a favourite blanket.
Water raging where calm once sat.
The strange beauty of walking through a morning that refuses to wake.

Maybe inspiration isn’t gone — maybe it’s simply waiting for a break in the clouds. And in the meantime, there is still life happening, still stories gathering quietly at the edges, ready to be written when the light returns.