Page 54 of Love from Pretty Beach

A week or so later, Darby was out with Lola for a walk.

It was a very long walk with the intention that it would tire her out.

Reason? She was going out on a very special date with Archie.

After strolling along the laneway with the wind in her hair and full of the joys of spring, she was more than happy with her decision to let Archie back into her life.

When she was with him, she felt as if all was right with her world.

Not that she needed him to fix her or complete her, or any of that old hogwash.

Of course not. It just felt nice to be with someone, to have someone listen, to get a message from someone at the end of the day.

Crossing the road, she walked beside a small stream alongside a locally known property, The Boat House, and panned her phone around at the lovely old building and its backdrop of the sea.

For a minute, she stood, filmed and looked at the building and then focused back on the stream running beside her.

The trickling sounded lovely and Lola was having a whale of a time.

On a bit of a roll, Darby flipped the camera.

'I’m on a little walk with Lola down a small road near some beautiful old buildings that I thought you might like to see.

There’s a gorgeous stream, seaplanes come in and out here, and I thought I'd show you how gorgeous it is in the little coastal town that I live in when the sun is out.

It's breathtakingly beautiful where I live, whatever time of the year and I do feel very lucky to live here. It’s been one of my better moves in life. '

As she walked and attempted to ramble on about not much at all, the wind whipped around and made her eyes water.

Walking slowly along, trying to frame herself against the backdrop of Pretty Beach doing its morning shuffle, Darby smiled.

Behind her, the laneway full of its flowers, fluttering bunting and pastel shops looked just right, all pale pastels, blues and centuries of life by the sea.

For sure, her hunch that people would be interested in a life in Pretty Beach had not been wrong.

'This is why I love living here and why I encourage you, if you feel like leaving the rat race and taking the plunge, to just do it, you won’t look back.

I know what you might be thinking, oh, yes, I do, because I’ve been there.

Another failed forty-year-old who's upped sticks and moved to a new life by the sea and now thinks she's discovered the secret to eternal life and happiness.

Yeah, on one front, you'd probably be right.

However, the latter part of that? Not quite my friends.

I'm not sure I have discovered secrets yet.

I'm still looking, to be honest and I’m okay with that. '

Darby peered down the laneway at the same time as trying to balance and talk into her phone.

It wasn’t an easy task. Strolling past Pretty Beach Fish and Chips, the fanciest fish and chip shop she’d ever partaken in, she angled her camera to show the bakery, which had a line coming out the door.

'That's the bakery. It's gorgeous and a lovely little hub of the town.

The ladies in there were the first to welcome us here when we moved.

One of my girls worked there on Saturdays. ..'

A woman in a waxed jacket, nice jeans tucked into boots and a big scarf emerged from the bakery carrying a paper bag. The woman nodded and smiled as she passed. ‘Darbs.’

Darby smiled back. ‘Hi.’

Pausing outside the bookshop, Darby focused on the window display.

‘I've shown you this place before. Honestly, it’s like a dream and has firmly put Pretty Beach on the bookworm map.

Everything about it is understated, a very uncarefully but carefully contrived frontage hints at the fact that you might well lose yourself for a few hours if you allow yourself to lurk within.

This is where people come to take pictures of themselves taking pictures for Instagram. '

Continuing to walk along, Darby balanced Lola’s lead and the camera. Chatting away as if she were conversing with an old friend, she pointed out all the lovely things about what was ultimately one of her daily walks with Lola.

'The thing about living somewhere like this is that people know who you are and what you get up to, which I do quite like.

Where I used to live, that didn't happen.

There, where I lived before, I was quite anonymous.

You can have a complete breakdown on a train and nobody will even look up from their phone.

Here, if you so much as buy the wrong type of milk in the shop, it's front-page news by teatime. '

A woman in expensive activewear jogged past, ponytail swishing rhythmically, looking like she'd never had an unplanned thought in her life.

The sort of woman who probably meal-prepped on Sundays and had a five-year plan written on a laminated card.

Darby watched her disappear around the corner and felt the familiar pang of inadequacy.

Thinking that she’d lay a bet on the fact that the woman had goals and strategies and a pension plan that made sense, Darby chuckled.

Heading back in the direction of her house, she thought about her channel and all that had come with it.

Really, even though it was going strong, it was little more than a hobby.

There was no way her small corner of the internet would make her any money, but really, that wasn’t the point.

The point had been that she’d had a go and the result had improved her life immensely.

In actual fact, it wasn’t even the channel, her subscribers, comments or views themselves.

It was more that it had given her the oomph to see her own life for what it was.

It had made her grow and feel gratitude for what was at her fingertips.

Wanting to voice her thoughts, she sat on a bench near the ferry wharf and as the ferry came in and out, she turned her camera on, chatted away and mentioned how far she’d come.

'Whatever happens next, I can say I tried something. At least I can point out that I stopped hiding. I wanted to pull myself out of a hole and grow. Have I done that? I’m a work in progress.

Sometimes, I guess, you just keep showing up, even when you don't know what you're doing and see what comes next.

It looks to me as if that might be working… .'

Getting up, she put her phone away and realised that something important had shifted. She was no longer getting smaller and more isolated. She was expanding, growing, enjoying her life. That was worth putting herself out there for.