I didn’t become an outdoorsy woman overnight

I used to think becoming an outdoorsy woman meant turning into somebody new.

Someone fitter. Braver. More experienced. Someone who knew what all the kit was for and never worried about being the slowest person in the group.

But when I look back, the outdoors was never new to me at all. I was finding my way back to something I had loved long before life became busy.

The girl who was always outside

As a child, I loved being out on the moors. Jubilee Tower—Darwen Tower to most of us—was part of the landscape I grew up with.

I cycled. I swam. I played outside all day and came home when it was time for tea. Nobody called it an adventure or thought it needed special equipment. It was simply what we did.

Then, as happens to so many of us, life filled up. Work, responsibilities and all the other things that quietly take over. I hadn't stopped loving the outdoors; I had just lost touch with that part of myself.

Meeting Fiona

Before Covid, I met Fiona at a women's networking group. She told me about Love Her Wild and the work she was doing to help women have adventures outdoors.

I thought it was wonderful.

More than that, it reminded me of the things I had loved as a girl—the freedom of being outside, going somewhere under my own steam and discovering what was around the next corner.

I didn't join Love Her Wild then. The timing wasn't right, and soon afterwards Covid changed everybody's plans. But the idea stayed with me.

Waddow Hall, September 2021

In September 2021, I was invited to teach Pilates at a Love Her Wild North gathering at Waddow Hall, near Clitheroe.

I went there to teach something I already knew. I wasn't arriving with a grand plan to change my life. But being in that room, surrounded by women who were making space for movement, friendship and the outdoors, felt like another small step back towards myself.

It wasn't a dramatic mountaintop moment. Most important changes aren't.

Sometimes they begin in a village hall, on a Pilates mat, with a group of women you haven't met before.

Finding my way back

I didn't become confident outdoors overnight. I still had doubts, and there were plenty of things I hadn't tried. But I began to understand that I didn't need to become a different sort of woman before I was allowed to join in.

I didn't need to be the fastest, the fittest or the most experienced. I simply needed somewhere welcoming to begin.

That idea eventually became part of Outdoors With Cath.

I want women to know that getting outside doesn't have to mean a huge expedition. It might be a familiar path, a short walk, five quiet minutes noticing the world around you—or saying yes to something that has been sitting at the back of your mind for years.

You may not be starting from nothing.

You might simply be finding your way back to the person you were before life became so full.

Come with me.