Because we are so close, almost like sisters, and tell each other everything, she knew something was wrong the minute she entered my front door. It is Wednesday, our weekly ‘treat night’. This started years ago when we began attending Fat Club; everyone else would probably refer to it as a slimming club, but we preferred the ring of Fat Club, so it stayed. After standing on the scales, we would treat ourselves, regardless of whether we had lost or put on, irrespective of the fact that we probably had already had a treat that week. Before Covid, we decided to ditch going to a fat club and do it at my house instead; we’d stand on the scales and stuff our faces with lots of delectable treats, usually consisting of two desserts! Post-COVID, we continued with treat night but ditched the scales, which probably explains our continuously expanding waistlines!

I told her I had found a lump, which was being investigated, but not to worry because it was probably just a cyst. One of the many reasons I love Tash is that she, like myself, has no filter and says precisely what she’s thinking. ‘Let us have a feel then’ is her first response, then, ‘can’t feel anything, must be in your head, anyway let’s change the subject because it isn’t all about you, you know’. Her bluntness makes me laugh and takes my mind away from it. It would have made it ten times worse for me if she had been emotional. After being sworn to secrecy, as I didn’t want anyone worrying about me on my account, she started to moan about dinner not being ready, as I ‘only had one job’. This is a weekly occurrence in my house; the fact that I haven’t made or planned anything for dinner is a longstanding joke, as is my timekeeping.

We had arranged to visit Richard at the nearby Pengenna Manor to discuss an upcoming event. Travelling down narrow country roads had never bothered me previously; in fact, I learned to drive on them, but the way my brain was operating at the moment, my repeated phrase was ‘I hate my brain’, and the journey was frightening for me. I tried my best to keep my fears under control, but when we came face to face with a swollen Forde, I could feel my grasp on them weakening.

It was decided between Kev and Karin to ‘floor it’. Water came up over the bonnet and the front windshield. Seeing the water cover the car, I could feel the last threads of my control snapping. Encountering a small car coming the other way, Karin stopped and automatically moved to put the car in reverse.

The fear I felt made my words sound venomous, ‘don’t you dare go back’. In my mind, we were on a cliff edge; if she were to go back, we could fall off and all die.

The poor couple we were forced to reverse might well now be divorced. The woman who was driving hit every single corner of the car on the banks. The male, who I assume was her husband, tried to give her advice, to which she ripped his head off. If this couple ever read this book, I would like to apologise for the ensuing argument that I caused.

Once she reversed into a passing area, we drove past her and continued on to the Manor, which was just around the corner.

When we arrived at the Manor, I began to relax and calm down. It is a fantastic property, so tranquil and surrounded by Cornish hills.

I wasn’t looking forward to the journey back to the Inn, and I hoped that we wouldn’t have to go through the Forde again. Luckily, we didn’t; we went across Bodmin Moor, which was one hundred times worse.

The road was incredibly windy, and each time it disappeared, either around a sharp corner or over the brow of a hill, I thought the road had disappeared, and we would all fall to our deaths. I didn’t have time to calm down from one incident to the next, and I quickly became hysterical. In all the years that I have known Karin, she has never known what I am afraid of. Slowing down, she pointed out a horse on my side of the car.

‘Ah, look at the little horse.’

Bear in mind that I am already hysterical; my grasp on reality has gone. I screamed, ‘I’m scared of horses’ whilst punching Karin in the arm, trying to make her drive whilst also trying to climb over the sizeable centre console at the same time.

Everyone, bar me, was in fits of laughter.

All I could do was ‘brace’ as each scary thing happened. I’m not sure who started it, but eventually they all joined in shouting ‘Look out’, ‘What’s that?’, or Karin would brake hard. Each time, I got more and more scared.

There was a concrete bridge over a perfectly calm pond. The sky and surrounding fauna echoed on its surface. It was probably a couple of inches deep. But in my head, it was a raging torrent of water. The bridge was rickety and crumbling, and we were all going to die. They all decided to stop on this bridge. I was beside myself with fear, my heart beating so erratically that I swear it was about to stop.

Of course, looking back, we laugh about it. At the time, I tried to laugh, too. I knew that my friends wouldn’t put me in danger and that what they said was the truth, but my mind would not allow me to sway from the course it had decided to take me down.