The woman who walked

My book “The Woman Who Walked” will be coming out in September 2025.

Watch this space for information.

The Woman Who Walked - To the Lighthouse

I am lying flat on my back, the wind whipping over me, the sound of sand sprinkling against the fabric of my jacket. I cannot feel my hands feet or feet, despite the fact it is a glorious sunny day without a cloud in the sky.

It is an odd start to a walk to the lighthouse. But the sea was so sparkling and the sky so wide and blue that I couldn’t resist the first sea swim of the year. Every year, I imagine that this will be the year when I swim right through the winter. And every year, I discover that a gap has happened between swims, and then the gap has grown too wide, and the desire to get in at all in December has suddenly waned. And yet again, I wait for the spring.

I am lying on the beach, wrapped in a coat and a dry robe, hoping the sun will eventually warm me up.

When it doesn’t, I set out to walk along the North Devon Coastal Path.

It is beautiful. Along the rocky cliff edge, the sun gleams on the water, and the wind whips the grasses and my hair. Children are running and shouting on the beach, throwing themselves in the sand, a few of them braving the freezing cold water. Families are eating ice-creams and strolling. A couple and their dog are picnicking on the cliff top, looking out over the beach. The calls of seagulls and the distant waves on the shore, everywhere the sound and feel of summer holidays though it is only Spring.

And I am walking.

Along the cliff, the rocks stretch out into the sea on one side, and the old Victorian villas are on my right. Every building here seems to be a holiday apartment or guest house, one marvellously crenellated, like a castle, all overlooking the bay, an expansive view that stretches away to Morte Point to the right and all the way to Puttsborough to the left. It is stunning on a day like today. There is no whisper of the ships lured on purpose by smugglers or finding themselves in error, wrecked upon the treacherous reef of rocks in stormy weather.

I don’t walk to Morte Point, weaving around the edge of the bay out towards the Death Stone, as the Normans named it. Not this evening. Instead, I head inland and over the hill. Past Barricane Beach, past Combesgate and Grunta beaches.

The sun beats down on me. It is hot like a midsummer’s day, and it is the evening. The sun’s heat intensifies as it sets. Filling my eyes. Life is teeming between the hand-stacked Devon Stone walls, primroses, gerbera, bluebells, violets, ivy, tiny succulents, white bluebell-like plants, and other things I don’t know the names of.

Morthoe is at the top of a steep climb. Where the Chichester Arms waits to enfold you in its embrace. Just around the corner are St Mary’s Church, The Ship Aground and The Smuggler’s Rest.  A short history of the village is told via its pub names. I can't help but think if a Smuggler made it up that hill with a barrel of rum, he deserved not just a rest but a pint or three when he got there.

I turn left out of the village and down into a valley. It is quiet again. Just birdsong and the sea, the wind in the grasses. It is very sheltered, but looking out to sea, from the way the ocean is moving, it is clear to see it is being pushed along by the wind, and that when I reach the headland, I will find myself turning into a headwind.

Sure enough, it is a headwind all the way from the aptly named Windy Lag right to the hill overlooking the Lighthouse and the jagged cliff edge. This Devon coastal landscape, the dusty paths through the bright yellow gorse bushes and blackthorn blossoms, and the wildflowers and butterflies are familiar but totally new.

We used to holiday in Devon when I was very small. My dad was constantly in search of beaches which no one else would make the climb down to, especially not with a small child. This involved long walks carrying things, buckets and spades, blankets and sandwiches, Dad carrying his wetsuit, flippers, weight belt and harpoon gun. He would disappear for hours, only a bright yellow snorkel appearing above the surface and a plume of water to show where he was. And I ran about in little coves, building sandcastles and dabbling about in rockpools where there was never another soul.

There are butterflies today. Many of them. The gorse and blossom are alive and humming with the noise of bees and insects in and out of the flowers. I follow the path over the heathland and eventually the next headland.

The lighthouse appears in view.

Perched dangerously on the edge of the cliff, the wind buffeting it, it sits above the fearsome jaws of almost vertical slate rocks as if some stone monster sleeps beneath the waves, its mouth open wide, waiting for a vessel to draw near.  In heaving seas, one can imagine ships caught in the current and the wind and waves would not fare well against them.

The lighthouse cottage is aptly named Siren Cottage, many a sailor having been lured down to Davy Jones Locker here, either with sweet mermaid songs on summer evenings or with the howl of wild winds and broiling seas.

It is all calm sunshine and heavenly sunlight today. I walk around it right on the cliff edge, its glass reflector in the tower spinning rhythmically in the sun, though no light is yet on. Three funnel-shaped concrete holes beneath the light wait to belt out a foghorn when the light cannot make it through.

There is something about a lighthouse, a symbol of this light in the darkness, a sign of land in a vast expanse of ocean. It is both the light that promises land ahoy, that a safety from the wind and waves must be close at hand, but also cautions, beware the treachery that lies beneath the waves. Come no closer. This is not the safe harbour of which you seek.

I wonder about the life of a lighthouse keeper out here. Alone on this rocky outcrop, staring out to sea, the great expanse on three sides. The call of the seabirds wheeling overhead, the nature of the waves, your constant companions. Wild, alone, free. The sound of the waves and the siren’s song on the wind.

I turn my back on the lighthouse then, and turn towards the warmth of the sun and begin to walk towards it. Its rays warm on my face, and the salt drying on my skin.

My book “The Woman Who Walked” will be coming out in September 2025.

It will be available in bookshops and from Amazon.

Watch this space for more information, book launch dates and more….. coming soon.