Several years of infertility treatment had followed. Her menstrual cycle logged into her laptop and phone. Making love according to a date stipulated by an ovulation kit and an app. Followed by expensive and painful attempts at IVF. It sure had been a romance-buster. Finally, they’d separated, sadly and very painfully. Mike had quickly got together with a fellow teacher, who was now pregnant by him, and Georgie had gone back to her maiden name.

After a sudden bout of acid reflux, something that was occurring constantly at the moment, she ran down the side of the Old Station Cafe, crossed the cycle lane and turned left, following the curve of the bay towards St Helier. To her right, below on the beach, people were walking their dogs, some of which were bounding, free of their leads, across the vast expanse of wet sand left by the retreating sea. Further over, the rock outcrop to the east of the harbour, topped by Elizabeth Castle and separated from the mainland by a causeway, was now walkable with the far-receded tide.

To get away from the trauma of her marriage split, she’d come to Jersey for the summer at the invitation of an old girlfriend, Lucy, who she’d known since primary school. Lucy had moved to the island a while back with her sister, and Lucy herself was training to become a nutritionist. Georgie loved her passion for this and for going back to study. They’d both made a big leap to change career well into their thirties and were a huge support to each other. In fact, whenever they met up, which was often, they were normally in tears of laughter within minutes. ‘The Gigglers’, as they had been known back when they were five years old. That had stuck, and they loved and cherished it.

Soon after Georgie’s arrival on the island she’d had a short relationship with an estate agent, which hadn’t worked out. She hadn’t been ready to return to London and had really grown to love everything about Jersey – the calmer pace of life, the rugged landscapes and the beaches, and the feeling of safety that the island community offered. She’d decided she wanted to stay. She managed to get accepted as a Jersey resident and was making a life here, building a new career as a personal trainer. She called her company Fit For Purpose.

Although this island she now called home was small, just nine miles by five, it felt much larger. One of her clients, who had spent all her life in Jersey, had told her that it increased its land mass by one third when the tide was out. Not hard to believe, from the vast amount of beach she could see.