Monday August 25th 2025
Shop’s closed, and I told Jones I would be hiking today, and hike I shall!
Hurray!
Feeling a teeny bit nervous, actually.
My plan is to explore the west coast, hitting the apparently famous Pouque Rock for a little solo picnic and then heading home.
Only thing is, today has sort of got away from me—have been sorting the “pharmacy corner” at the shop, which contains several drugs I’m not sure we can legally sell—and now it’s a bit late.
Can’t back out, though. Have been wearing hiking gear conspicuously all morning and announcing that I’m “off in a minute” since about eleven a.m.
Plus it’s a totally gorgeous day. We’re tipping toward September now, and I think I like the island even better than I did in that scorching week when I first arrived. Summer is lovely, but it’s all a bit obvious, isn’t it? Autumn is so much more interesting, and it’s officially on its way.
Right, have wasted another fifteen minutes writing about hiking, messaging Red for advice about hiking, and reminding Jones I’m about to go hiking.
He was in the kitchen, snacking—have been leaving out sugary treats for him lately, as the internet says they help with alcohol cravings, and may have created a monster.
Lately Jones gets through about eight of Doc Laurry’s cardamom custard creams per day.
Ooh, Rosie just dropped off some hiking boots—apparently my trail-running shoes won’t cut it, and Red texted her asking if she had spares for me on the off chance.
Isn’t that so nice? Ended up having massive chat out on the track, and then Red cycled by and joined in, and even Kim the sheep farmer (typically Team Galoshes) stopped her tractor for a while to talk.
She’s actually fabulous. Has an anecdote for everything. And always wears such good hats.
Stood in the sunshine with a bunch of fascinating, openhearted women and could have burst with the loveliness of it.
Also got loads of great Ormer gossip. Found out when Kim divorced her husband, he tried to get her farm on the grounds that she wouldn’t be able to manage it herself.
After she took him to court over it, she stood for Deputy for Agriculture just to piss him off.
And Red actually left home on the mainland because her dad kicked her out for being bisexual, and Rosie heard her story and immediately took her in at the B&B and gave her a job, and now Red wants to live here forever.
Women! We’re so great. Am buoyed up by sisterhood, feminism, girl power et cetera—genuinely feel much less nervous about the walk now. Though I really should get going. Never mind, it’s good I’m leaving late—I’ll time my Pouque Rock picnic with the sunset!
Pausing midhike to jot down some gorgeousness.
Am so glad I’ve ventured off the main tracks at last. It’s just stunning view after stunning view.
There’s a tumbledown stone mansion I’d never have seen if I wasn’t on the narrow coastal path—it’s on the craggy rocks above Fortitude Bay, which was completely deserted today, like a secret paradise.
Also found a tiny abandoned bird’s nest in a patch of wildflowers.
Very hokey, I know, but I just sat for a while with it in my palms and stared at it.
It was like…the perfect home in miniature.
And then there’s the sea, disappearing and reappearing every time the track takes me to a peak in the rocks.
It’s about an hour and a half until sundown, but that’ll be fine—Google Maps directions aren’t loading, as per, but doesn’t look like far to go.
This rock Jones was on about.
It’s actually kind of an island. An islet? It’s a humped, grassy-topped dot to the west of Ormer, connected to the coast by a short, rocky track, wet with seawater. Right now, I’m sitting on it.
A few months ago, I would never have crossed those slippery stones. I’d have left the adventuring to everyone else. This wasn’t my kind of fun.
Now, though, I think I get why people make so much fuss about the Great Outdoors. It’s the freedom. If I’d slipped on those stones and made a fool of myself, there would’ve been nobody here to see me.
I’m sweating. My arm muscles are shaking from scrambling up to the plateau at the top of the rock.
It’s grassy up here, and the greenery is scattered with star-shaped yellow flowers.
There’s a single rock in the center, a natural pyramid shape, and it’s the perfect place to rest with my diary and a squished-up custard cream.
Food is somehow better when you’ve been hiking.
I feel…looser, softer, more here. Kind of peaceful, actually.
I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone right now.
There aren’t any members of the committee around to win over (rare on Ormer, I’ve learned).
This beautiful place even softens the memory of them laughing at me during The Night of the Pig.
It just…doesn’t matter what they think of me, does it?
It’s something I’ve said to myself a million times—who cares what anyone else thinks!—but out here alone in the wilderness it actually hits home. Who? Cares? You know? Who cares!
And it’s so tiring. Trying to be what I think other people think I should be. It’s even tiring to write that sentence down—look at it, what a mess it is, all the thinking in there.
I wanted to be someone new, coming here, and I’ve been trying so hard to pull that off, but maybe I’ve been approaching this all wrong. If I really want to start a new life, I’ve got an opportunity, haven’t I?
If I can be anyone I like…wouldn’t it be nice to actually be me?
What. The fuck.
The walkway has disappeared??
It was just there. I just walked across it.
I’ve only been…what, half an hour?
And now it’s as if it never was. Between here and the rocky beach opposite there’s nothing but water.
This isn’t an almost-islet. This is an islet.
I’m trapped on this rock!?!
I’ve called Rosie, Red, Marly, Rog, Toby, Toby’s mum and even Galoshes. Not a single person is answering their phone. This bloody low-tech island. I’m not even surprised. Rosie left her phone balanced on top of a fence post for three days last week.
I’m alone. There’s nobody who can help me.
I’m actually really scared.
Don’t want to call him. Don’t want to call him.
I’m not going to. Turns out I would actually rather die alone on a rock than let Jones know that I’m dying alone on a rock, so that’s…healthy.
Feel so embarrassed. Half the island will already know I’m stuck here, too.
I’ve sent most of them panicky messages to that effect.
Am sitting leaning against the pyramid-shaped rock, staring out at the darkening hulk of the island, quite possibly about to sink into the sea, and all I can think is…
everyone’s going to think I’m such a fool.
I so desperately want them all to think well of me. And now they all know I can’t even go for a hike without humiliating myself.
Trying to hold on to that new feeling I had, the knowledge that it doesn’t matter what everyone thinks.
But the wanting-to-disappear feeling is rising through me again and I can’t help it—I’m crying.
Keep thinking about Galoshes and Jones laughing about me at the shop tomorrow, everyone talking about me at the Pirate’s Den.
Feel desperate to get out of here, to get out of my own fucking head.
I’m so afraid.
The awful, crawling, fearful sensation seems so huge out here. Nothing else to do, nowhere to look but out into the darkness.
I feel like this more often than I would like to admit. And lately…more than ever, and worse than ever, too.
Is this…normal?
Jones’s voice keeps going around in my head. Are you anxious?
I’ve said that I’m “feeling anxious” before. It’s just a word you use, isn’t it, like worried or obsessing? But I’ve never really approached the thought that it could be, you know, official. Pathological. Proper anxiety.
But what if it could be?
What am I feeling? Usually I hate this sensation so much I just shove it down, try not to think about it. But what is actually going on right now?
I’d say…the feeling starts in the center of me and spreads outward like a firework.
It sizzles down my limbs. My heart pounds.
I get clammy with horror. Hot and cold all at once.
And within seconds it’s taken me over, occupying the entirety of my mind, edge to edge, giving me no space for a single rational thought.
Honestly, it is a sensation so unpleasant that I think I would rather die than feel it, which is bizarre, completely bizarre, because surely what I’m afraid of is death—why else would I care that I’m stranded alone on a darkening rock in the middle of the sea, if not for the danger?
You know, I don’t think it is the danger I’m scared of, if I’m truly honest. The bad feeling isn’t about that part, not for me. The awful, clawing, self-loathing terror is about…what everyone else will think.
This is horrible. It is horrible to see all this written down.
I just googled Am I anxious?
Do non-anxious people ask Google whether they’re anxious?
There’s a test for anxiety disorder. You can do it online if you want. GAD-7, it’s called, which sounds more like a military plane, or maybe something you can do instead of A levels? But anyway, it gives you a nice score to tell you how mad you are.
And apparently I’m A* mad. A total anxious wreck.
Definitely shouldn’t talk like that. Mental health awareness is so important! And I have friends back on the mainland with this sort of stuff—would never tell them they’re mad. Wouldn’t even think it.
Me, though…
That’s a different story. Because I am not allowed to have anxiety. People with anxiety have a real problem, like a proper life-affecting mental-health issue, whereas me? I’m just…well. I’m just not brave enough, not together enough. Not good enough.
Though that GAD-7 score was pretty conclusive.
I don’t know what to do with it. Keep flicking my phone on and staring at the questionnaire again.
Over the last two weeks, how often have you been bothered by not being able to stop or control worrying?
Been so restless that it is hard to sit still?
Felt afraid as if something awful might happen?
And on it went. I mean, are they serious? This is me almost all the time these days. But isn’t this the natural way to behave when you’ve learned that the worst possible thing can happen?
Aren’t I just…right?