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So What Now?

Sitting on the top of Mam Torr, on a cold, blustery day, and it takes me back a few years, while I was out on my very first walk with Large Outdoors, and a group of friendly people whom I had never met before!

That day too, was cold, blustery and very foggy, yet for the first time in almost 20 years it introduced to me to a few hours of blissful freedom and the solitude of my own uninterrupted thoughts, which in short amounted to that question which many of us will ask in our lifetime, ‘so what now’?

Was this a midlife crisis or simply the realisation that at the age of 46, single and my children now entirely independent and at University, there was going to be plenty of time on my hands, and I was going to have to learn to live life for ME? An obscure concept if ever there was one.

I guess it was going to take some time to figure it out… and so I spent the next 18 months mostly walking and challenging the very core of who I really was. From Glydder Fawr in Snowdonia to the Yorkshire 3 Peak Challenge, I finally walked myself into what is now an absolute passion, where I live, breathe and practice photography. It has taken me over four years to get to where I am now, and it has been a significant life-changing experience, visiting some amazing places, both home and abroad, where I have had the pleasure to meet many fellow photographers along the way, and many remain, my friends, today.

It would never have crossed my mind to set up my own photography business, yet here I am nearly six years on, with 23 years as an Interior Designer taking a part-time role, while still feeding my creative nature to nurture the artistic bones I was born with – some things never leave you. My journey continues, and photography is my ‘what now’, I love it, and feel utterly blessed that I had such a crossroad to bare, as daunting as it was at the time. A lesson to us all I guess, never be scared of change, embrace it, enjoy it and have fun along the way, as you never know where it is going to take you!