A Funny Bridge, Seven Videos and a Reminder of Why I Walk
The last few weeks have mentally felt quite heavy. Not because I’ve been questioning Bimbling, Books & Beer. In fact, if I’m honest, BBB feels like it’s finally heading exactly where I always hoped it would. The partnerships are growing, projects I’ve spent months visualising are becoming reality and, for the first time, it genuinely feels like all the hard work of the last year is starting to pay off and showing.
The difficult bit has been everything outside of that. I’ve found myself questioning my own direction in life, wrestling with loneliness and realising that after everything that’s happened in past relationships, I’ve built independence so deeply into my routine that I sometimes don’t know how to let people back in.
I’ve become so fiercely independent from past relationship traumas that I’m now scared of letting anyone in and, as a result, I’ve been struggling with loneliness and this is something which currently… I don’t have an answer or resolution to.
That’s been the strange thing about this whole period because while I’ve been carrying all of that around, the support for BBB has kept coming. Campsites, holiday cottages, gear brands, subscription services and old friends wanting to work together. After the winter I’ve just had, it’s been incredible to see things finally starting to fall into place.
Anyway, last week I took myself back to Man Down to fully address the fact that despite all these really positive things happening, I was still struggling to see all the good through the red mist of mental health around me.
Walking back through that door to a group of blokes who were strangers was terrifying, but honestly, I can’t wait to go back next week to see them all again.
With all that said, it was time this week to head back out in the TentBox on one of my first campsite collaborations for the new series I’ve just launched called TentBox Diaries, which is only on its second episode, and it’s a paid collaboration which was incredible for me. Proof that the projects I visualise and pitch to companies really are considered and do have legs.
So I packed the TentBox, loaded the cameras and headed back to the South West Coast Path and by the time I came home this evening, I’d filmed seven videos. Yes, that’s right, seven videos in 48 hours away. To say I’m exhausted is an understatement, but I’m so grateful I put the graft in and now have content to drip out there into the world for the coming weeks.
I captured:
Two South West Coast Path episodes.
Two Field to Fork films.
A TentBox Diaries adventure.A Good Pair Days feature.
And one completely ridiculous minute long video standing in front of a gigantic wooden bridge that crossed what could only be described as a trickle of water.
I called it a raging torrent and massively overplayed the challenge ahead of me for what I thought was comedic value, and it turns out it made thousands of other people laugh too. Perhaps that’s the point. Not every story has to be profound. Sometimes a funny bridge is just a funny bridge.
But yesterday, walking from St Loy to Lamorna, something hit me. As I rounded the Land’s End peninsula, I could see the Lizard stretching out in the distance and, for the first time, I stopped thinking about the next video. I stopped thinking about views. I stopped thinking about algorithms. I simply thought about how far I’d walked.
Not just that day.
Not just that week.
But from St Ives, around Cornwall’s wild western edge and all the way to Lamorna.
It isn’t the longest stretch of the South West Coast Path, but it felt like a turning point. A reminder that the biggest journeys rarely happen all at once. They happen one small step, one awkward conversation, one camera battery, one brand email and one funny little bridge at a time.
A few weeks ago I wasn’t really sure where I was heading. Tonight, after seven new films, a handful of new partnerships and a walk around Land’s End, I think I know.
I’ve come home exhausted and I’ve now got a mountain of editing to do, but I couldn’t be happier about that.
Tomorrow I’ve got my car MOT. Next week I’ve got my Universal Credit meeting hanging over me like a massive saggy sock, so it would seem life is still very good at keeping your feet on the ground.
But more importantly, I came home with seven new stories to tell.
And perhaps that’s the real reason I keep walking.
Because somewhere out there, around the next headland, there’ll be another ridiculous bridge, another unexpected conversation, another beautiful view or another reminder that the path ahead is worth following.
And for now, that’s more than enough.
