Saturday August 9th 2025
Just woke up in beautiful converted stables to sound of birdsong. Everything had warm, dreamy quality. Sunbeams through enormous windows, fluffy duvet tucked beneath my chin, promise of bright fresh start ahead of me.
Last night, walking to the stables in the dusk, it felt as though I’d met the real Ormer. The moment the last tourist ferry left, it was as if the island breathed out. The horse-drawn carts disappeared, replaced by the occasional local on a rusted bike with a sleepy dog trotting at their back wheel. Birds hopped out of hedgerows, as though they knew it was safe now. Everything was slower and softer. The dust kicked up by the tractors in the daytime was settling like glitter as the sun set, and the whole island shimmered.
As I woke in the stables, I allowed myself a minute to manifest my beautiful new life here. Me, slipping out of bed and into a cute dress and Birkenstocks ahead of a day at the farm shop. Overnight oats, freshly squeezed orange juice and a quality coffee machine waiting for me in the kitchen. The generous walk-in wardrobe transformed into a nursery—soft cream on the walls, a textured rug, a moon-and-stars mobile above the cot—all ready for me to take that next step I’ve been longing for.
Then I returned to reality.
“Just so you know,” said Jones, emerging from said walk-in wardrobe, “that isnotbig enough to be a bedroom.”
…There had been nowhere else available to stay on the island. Not a single room, apparently—there isn’t much accommodation anyway, as people generally come here on day trips from Jersey or Guernsey, and the island is (as discussed) tiny.
Thought there would besomewhere, though. But Jones rocked up at ten p.m. with a thunderous expression, chucked his bag on my sofa and announced that unless I wanted him to sleep in a cow barn, we were going to need to find a way to share.
And here we were.Bothof us. Even though I was fine with the Jones-in-a-cow-barn plan, actually.
He stomped past the end of my bed—the only way out of his “room,” in fairness, is through mine. He was dressed in gray jogging bottoms and a sagging white T-shirt. Why are gray jogging bottoms such a good look on a man? It’s not fair—when I wear them, I look like someone just broke up with me. I pulled the duvet up higher, though I needn’t have bothered—he didn’t look at me once.
“Is there coffee?” he said as he marched through the bedroom door, leaving it swinging open.
The stables are gorgeous, but it’s definitely compact in here. There’s this bedroom with its walk-in wardrobe, a bathroom with a surprisingly roomy shower and a freestanding bath that looks over the fields, and then the rest of the long building is a kitchen leading into a living space with a wood burner and cozy sofa. An idyllic place to live alone, or with a little one.
Notan idyllic place to live with a stranger who claims that your lovely new life belongs to him.
“I don’t know,” I said, “did you make coffee?”
“I’ve only just got up.”
“And I’m still in bed, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I noticed.”
“OK, so, no, there is no coffee waiting for you in the kitchen, since I haven’t even— Oh, all right then,” I finished. I’d just heard the shower door slam shut. “I guess you’re not part of this conversation anymore.”
The shower turned on. I lay back on the pillow. Manifest, manifest, manifest. Maybe if I get really good at it, I can manifest him right back to the mainland.
Ten missed calls from Brianna. A string of irate WhatsApps:
Hello? I know you’re starting a new life but you can’t get rid of ME, YOUR BARNACLE, YOUR LIMPET, YOUR ADDITIONAL LIMB
What do you mean there’s another Charlie Jones?! Surely not. How many bloody Charlie Joneses can there actually be in the world?
I’ve googled, there are over a million Charlie Joneses in the world, who would have thought it! CALL ME BACK.
Yanked a cardigan on over my pajamas and went outside to call her. She launched straight in.
