Friday September 5th 2025
Keep meaning to write about the comanager meetings. We’ve had loads now, without arguing—or kissing.
Vibe is completely different at the stables since the lighthouse convo. Jones and I are extremely polite to each other these days. Almost too polite, actually. Yesterday he thanked me four times for putting enough water in the kettle for him to have tea, too. But it’s good. Definitely better than trying to pretend the other person doesn’t exist. And we’ve divided management roles at the shop, we’re splitting shifts so we both have more time instead of getting on top of each other every day…It’s all working very well.
Things are a bit…heightened, though. Do my absolute best to avoid getting too near to him, but can only do so much when we’re literally living the same life. He’s everywhere I am, by definition. Atwork, at home…Like, he’ll come into the kitchen while I’m washing up, and it’s a verysmallkitchen, so when I turn he’s barely a step away, in a rumpled shirt that shows the freckles across his collarbones. Gray eyes full of messages I can’t interpret, hair ruffled like I’ve had my fingers through it. And if our hands touch, or our arms brush…it never feels like nothing, the way it should. It feels like a shortcut back to that night. Rain, laughter, a momentary loss of sanity.
You’d think all the exposure would help, but I’m more jittery with him than ever. Funny, really, as he’s actually a very calm person, very measured and deliberate in everything he does. The assured type—the sort of man who would look you right in the eyes in bed, one steady hand on your jaw, then touch youjustwhere you wanted him to, staying totally composed while you begged and whined and writhed.
…Maybe at this point worth mentioning that my little crush on Jones has grown somewhat since the lighthouse incident. Am not going to write about the kiss,obviously. Just mean that I’m no longer thinking of him as an imposter trying to steal my job, and that’s changed matters. It was pretty much the only turnoff he had going for him, and now it’s gone, and he’s just a really good-looking man living in my house, showering in my shower, naked, every day,rightthere.
And now I know he’s a good kisser.
Sometimes find myself daydreaming about doing something I shouldn’t. Like leaving the bedroom door open while I’m getting changed and he’s in the kitchen. Or kicking the covers off when I go to bed first, in the big bedroom, and I know he’ll have to tiptoe through to the small room, but if the curtains are open and the moonlight’s coming in, he might see me lying there in my little pajama set…
Getting him tolookat me, basically. I get a bit giddy when Jones looks at me. He holds eye contact like it’s something physical. And I think…I’ve always been someone a bit different depending on who’s looking, but I can’t do that with Jones, because he just looks. Atme.
By the time he turns away, I’m usually a little flushed.
But obviously all of this is just fantasy, and when we’re actually together, we are just very, very polite.
I have my rule. No men. Not now. I’m searching for a different sort of love of my life, and if I let myself fall for another guy, I know what I’m like—I’ll lose my conviction. I’ll start thinking about whathewants, whether he would be interested in me if he knew I’m pursuing motherhood on my own, so maybe I shouldn’t be, and so on and so on.
So no men. No sexy eye-contacty men who make me feel fluttery and safe all at the same time.
Andno more thinking about the kiss.
Friday September 12th 2025
Found myself sitting at the kitchen table this morning, drinking coffee and wondering, Who am I?
I blame Rosie. She got me thinking all…existentially with her giant universe chat the other week.
WhoamI, though? You know? Like, who actually am I? If I do have anxiety, how much of what I think I am is actually…that?
I guess giving the anxiety a name separates it fromme. And that means I can hate it—the feeling, the thoughts—without hating myself. Before that night on Pouque Rock, whenever I considered my, like, personality, I was so busy either despising or trying to ignore this part of myself I rarely got much further than that.
But now I’m thinking…OK, I’m anxious. Whatelseam I?
Oh, bollocks. Briefly pausing existential crisis as forgot to tell Marly we don’t need any more wheat to decorate the shop—can see her through the window carrying a whole sheaf over her shoulder like she’s stepped out of a tapestry. Shop is already festooned in autumnal decorations thanks to paid-for “natural crafting” session with Karen from the committee, who runs them for tourists (desperate attempt to get her on my side. Medium success. She chats to me now when she drops off her flowers, especially since I started ordering larger bouquets and displaying them in buckets outside the front door. If Galoshes is around, though, I get the cold shoulder).
BRB.
Marly quite irritated—wheat was heavy, apparently. I ended up saying we did need additional sheaf after all. Will just decorate the toilets with it. No reason we can’t have seasonal loos.
Saturday September 13th 2025
New day. Am looking in wardrobe. All dresses are very mumsy. Jones was so right about me faking it when I got here. Shouldn’t have splurged on new outfits before leaving the mainland—was a costly mistake. Did I really think wearing a knee-length skirt would help me transform into a competent single mum? My self-belief was at rock bottom, wasn’t it?
May not quite know who I am, but am suddenly confident it’snota puff-sleeved dress person.
“Umm, hel-lo,” was how Red greeted me when I got to the shop today. “Slay, Charlie!”
Could’ve sworn it was Galoshes and Toby on today, but Galoshes is nowhere to be seen. After close inspection of the shop, finally spot Toby hiding behind the display of Doc Laurry’s obscure dried herbs.
Poor Doc Laurry—he’s still on standby to bake us daily biscuits for the shop. He’s rearranged his whole schedule at the medical center and everything, but each time we try to move forward, it gets to the weekly committee meeting and stalls. This time it was blocked on “environmental grounds” (something about Doc’s use of manure when growing certain ingredients), thanks to Kim, who did at least have the decency to apologize to Doc about it afterward. Galoshes has made this her vendetta, and it’s clear that until we can talk her around, Doc’s outrageously delicious biscuits will remain an Ormer secret, and all those equally delicious profits from hungry tourists will elude us.
“Wow, is ‘slay’ still in?” I asked Red as I chucked my handbag into the back room.
