As the year draws to a gentle close and winter settles softly over the paths we’ve wandered, I find myself thinking back on the many footsteps we’ve taken through 2025. The sun-lit ridges, rain-kissed lanes, quiet forests and windswept meadows, each walk has carried its own small magic, which I have enjoyed sharing here over recent weeks.
Today is the Saturday before Christmas, and the world greets us with a rare winter kindness: wide blue skies, golden sunshine, and the promise of a day without rain. It is my first full weekend of freedom since starting a new job in October—and the first dry one in some time. We set out with excitement and intent. This day will not be wasted.
This Sunday morning begins with a fragile promise. As I make my coffee, I glance out into the garden—dry, mild, quietly inviting beneath a soft quilt of cloud. For a brief moment, the day feels generous, as though it is offering us safe passage. But by the time the mug is empty, the familiar transformation has already taken place. Rain returns, unannounced yet expected, settling back into the land with calm authority. At this time of year, mild air and rain move together, inseparable companions drifting steadily through the season.
Our Sunday adventure begins later than usual today. The week behind us—crowded with routines, early alarms, long hours and late nights—has taken its quiet toll. And so this morning, for once, I gift myself permission to rest. The rare luxury of letting the dawn unfold without me.
When I finally stir, slow and unhurried, Carys sits by my side, watching me with patient expectation. She knows, instinctively, by the clothes I’ve pulled on, that today is a day built for distance—a day measured not by clocks or calendars but by footsteps, open fields and the promise of discovery.
We step out a little earlier than usual today. We often walk along the very line between night and morning, balanced on that tender seam where the world quietly changes hands. But this morning belongs wholly to the darkness—unclaimed, unbroken, unlit by anything except what we bring with us.
December arrives not with a whisper, but with a gentle growl—heavy rains and high winds, unrelenting and unsoftened until evening. The first breath of winter feels mild, but fierce and alive.
We set out just after sunrise, the morning air crisp and sharp with the returning frost. Overnight, the landscape has been brushed by winter’s delicate hand once again. Above, a pale blue sky, uninterrupted by clouds, and the sun a glowing orb suspended low, spilling golden warmth across the frost-bound earth.
The weekend arrives beneath a soft percussion of rain, tapping gently against the windows as though trying to rouse me with its persistent song. The day is damp, heavy, and cold—but it is mine. A single day of stillness carved from a working week, which I refuse to surrender to the weather.
This morning I wake to a shimmering, diamond-bright blanket cast across the land—winter’s familiar touch returning with its quiet authority. Every blade of grass, every fallen leaf, every humble stone is dressed in frost, glittering beneath the beam of my torch as though the earth itself has been dusted with crushed stars.