Blue Van Woman is back

For those who missed Marion's blog last year here's a summary.

Marion and I met in a Violence Against Women & Girls book club. She is in her early 70's and is a survivor of domestic abuse. We work together on a variety of projects, and she is a critical friend.

Marion is also studying a PhD in creative writing. As part of this she was keen to start blogging but didn't want the hassle of setting up her own, so we came to an agreement.

She writes I host.

Here's some extracts from last year's blogs;

'For maybe a year I wept for what I had lost.? I wept for the man I loved.? I wept because if I had only tried harder then we could have stayed together.? Then I cried because I couldn’t forgive him.? Then I cried because he wasn’t sorry.'

'There was, however, a still small voice in my head. The voice that told me that once I got to seventy it was pretty much game over. People who are seventy are sexless and invisible – I thought. At seventy I need to worry about routines and being sensible. I began to become the stereotype that I had imagined.? And, quite frankly, I was unhappy and scared and I was lonely.? There were so many things that I thought I couldn’t do because I was old and alone. But it began to dawn on me that if I didn’t do something then my life would start to shrink.'

'My van is parked on the road – I don’t have a driveway – but the vicar does.? The vicar had let slip that he is no stranger to the art of camping.? Does tent pitching fall into the remit of ‘pastoral care’ I wondered?'?

I am much less scared in my van than I was living with a man who might turn on me at any moment. When you have been afraid in your own home, day in day out, then you know what real fear is. Being in charge of my own life now is perfect freedom.

Next week Blue Van Woman is back with more reflections and hopefully some more adventures in her van.

You can hear more from Marion here as she recorded not one but two podcasts with me last year.

Series 2: Blue Van Woman, The Beginning of the Journey

Series 4: Blue Van Woman, Sex, Dragonflies & Tattoos

Subscribe to "Indomitable Women' to be sure not to miss them.