The latest rail strike meant it took me a whole day longer to get here this year, with a forced stop-over in Portsmouth. If we discount the fact that there were no trains running the day I was intending to travel – a challenge that was resolved within 10 minutes of presenting itself – it was one of the smoothest journeys ever. And even if it hadn’t been, by now it wouldn’t matter. Because now I am back on the island and I am so…I guess the word is happy. Waiting for my cab from the ferry terminal, I suddenly realised that I wasn’t edgy, or impatient.
I was just waiting. I was smiling. I was scenting the sea, looking at the sky, trying to help an American, who had so many cases he looked like he’d just been evicted, to call for a taxi. I’d watched him with all his luggage at Portsmouth, and boarding and disembarking the boat. My recent journal pages include a repetition of I could learn to travel lighter. In Kairomancy terms, this guy was both a reminder that yes I could, and also a don’t beat yourself up, you’re not doing too bad.
It is so good to be back. Don’t ask me why, because I really don’t know. When I’m asked what it is that keeps calling me back here, I talk about the slow pace of life, the smallness of the island which means you can’t really get lost, the bus service which makes it easy to just go walk and know that you can give up practically anywhere and get back to base without too much aggravation. I talk about the lanes and the road speed limits. I talk about how people talk to you. I’m sure all of that plays a part, but there is something else. Something intangible. A familiarity that feels deeper than just recognising some of the road & path layouts. I will repeat myself: it feels like coming home.
In the years before life got in the way of my travelling (doing a masters degree, quitting my job,
losing Clive, Covid – there were a few hurdles that blocked my long-haul adventures) I had never understood people who went back to the same place year after year. There’s such a huge world out there to explore, why would anyone keep going back to the same place?
I’m beginning to get it. I still want to travel wider and to unknown places, and while I’m not yet ready to get on a plane again, one of my writing projects will take me up and down the country, to places I know and many more that I do not. And yet…I want to keep coming back here. To this little island in the English Channel. Specifically, even, to this little corner of it.
I want to keep coming back to it without any particular plan as to what I’m going to do once I get here. By now I should have seen all the “sights”. I haven’t. I should have taken all the day trips to neighbouring islands. I haven’t. I should have swum in all the coves, walked all the beaches. I haven’t. I come here and I wander about. The word I often use is mooch, but I gather that means something different to our American cousins, so let’s stick with wander.
When people ask what I’m going to do, the “a bit” suffix covers a multitude of maybe so, maybe
not’s. I’m going to write a bit, swim a bit, walk a bit… It’s a warning not to expect me to come back and tell you how much of all of those things I did, because it’s likely to be not a lot. I might come back and tell you how wonderful it was, but I doubt I will be able to tell you how it was wonderful, because I’ll have done a bit of this and a bit of that and really, in normal terms, not very much of anything at all.
Perhaps that is precisely the point. Perhaps I come here to not do very much, in the normal ways of accounting for “doing”.
Previous visits have been about ‘taking stock’. This one isn’t. I have done that. I know where I am. I know where I want to be. So if anything, I guess this one is about what Brené Brown calls 'minding the gap’. The gap is the bit between where we are and where we want to be. In my case it’s not about bridging that gap – that’s quite possibly a life’s work – it’s about alignment, making sure I am on course, and adjusting as necessary. It’s about spending some time doing some of the things I know are important to me, and just seeing what emerges in the process.
It’s about getting a little more clarity on what matters, so that I can let go of a little more of what doesn’t.
Today, I walked down Le Varclin and followed the path towards the bay thinking I might go into Town. Then on a whim I turned right. As I set off through the trees, with the intermittent view of the sea beyond, I remembered Jason telling earlier: remember you are wood water. Perhaps that is the intangible of this place: the wood and the water. The water is in the air, you can smell the sea, anything you touch outside has that salt-sticky feeling. Everywhere is greenery. Fields and trees and ravines full of humidity and ancient ferns and mosses and lichens. Wood. Water.
As I hit what would pass for “my stride” today (it was a cliff & chasm day – full-on striding-out
not possible) I had a notion of walking the island circuit, and clockwise seemed the way to do it. Let me underline: it was a notion. It is not a plan. Ok, it might be a plan. Half a plan. A maybe so, maybe not. It is 39 miles. I have ten days. Four miles a day should be do-able, and still leave time for swimming, reading, writing and mooching.
Only, I’m not into measuring distance any more. I will have no idea on any given day whether I’ve come anywhere near that notional four miles. Plus I live in the flatlands, all this up & down steep cliffs is not a thing I’m used to, by which I mean I find it hard work. At least this trip I have my hiking pole with me. There’s an ego thing: hiking pole. When did we stop calling them walking sticks?
I leave the idea to mull itself over, while I settle in to enjoy the views of this wild and rocky coastline.
The tide is high in Fermain Bay, boats are at anchor, people are swimming, the water is the kind of
blue we don’t get around the coast of Britain. There’s a level stretch of path above the wooded cliff slope, and then at the first ravine, I hit a plume of mist swirling up out of the sea, rushing inland like some nebulous dragon with a thirst for conquest. To compound the eeriness I hear a fog horn sounding somewhere out there in the murk. That will become the signature sound of the day. That warning lament from one of the light-houses that mark the dangers of this shore.
The sun breaks through above the land, burning off the mist, but the bank of it out at sea remains impenetrable and the siren continues its lonely song.
Trees give way to ferns and scrub and the views open out ahead towards St Martins Point and
Jerbourg Point. I salute the rock that was my altar the first time I came here. I sat against that stone reading Man’s Search for Meaning, while I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Today, walkers in bright orange t-shirts are photographing each other down there. They pass me several times. They are strong and fast walkers. I only overtake them because they are taking the side excursions and I am not. I promised myself a gentle start to my week. There is enough up and down for me, without adding more in.
I make the steady climb up to the Jerbourg lookout point, and pause for lunch. I check the time and discover I’d better call it breakfast. I am really not used to hillwalking these days. I am pleased to discover that although my heart rate shoots up more quickly than it used to, my recovery time is still as quick and I think my breathing might be more controlled. Another ‘thank you’ is offered up for the cooling breeze.
The orange-shirted ones are on a mission. They overshoot me again, but then pause to dig out hats. We’re out of the mist and out of the tree cover. The sun is unexpectedly strong and I realise that I’ve left the sunblock back at base. That’s another reminder not to try to do too much on day one.
“Where are you headed?” she asks me.
“Wherever…”
“Ah, just as far as you get…”
“Something like that. There’s no rush and no destination.”
“That must be wonderful”
It is. It is wonderful to be in no rush and have no destination, only a general direction. Nowhere to go and all day to get there.
It isn't very long after our exchange, that I decide to bail out for the day, just above Petit Port, and climb back up to the Route Jerbourg, and the gentle walk ‘home’, thinking maybe I will do the next little stretch tomorrow.
