No stranger to the outdoors, I would often disappear into the wild when I was younger, wandering along the undulating Welsh hillsides and rocky coastlines— a lush, vibrant green landscape bespangled with dark forests, ruined castles, dank caves, and old graveyards.

Those places had a pull on me even then. The moss‑slick stones, the echoing chambers, the way the air changed as you stepped from daylight into shadow — it all felt like an invitation. My brother treated it as adventure. I treated it as something closer to pilgrimage. There was a thrill in the unknown, a quiet dare whispered by the land itself.

Every ruined archway felt like a threshold. Every cave mouth breathed a cold, damp welcome. Even the graveyards felt less like warnings and more like markers on a path I was already learning to follow.

Looking back, I realise those wanderings shaped me more than I knew. The solitude, the risk, the pull toward places other people avoided — They were early rehearsals for the life I would eventually choose. A life spent on the edges of things.
Little did I know back then — that the rugged cliffs of Orkney would eventually become my true Home.