The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Today I went on a hike. We had to drive to the starting point. I gave a lift to a Russian woman, an Italian woman, and a Greek woman. We arrived five minutes late because I was driving the car around a roundabout while Daft Punk's One More Time was playing on the stereo and every time Daft Punk said "one more time" I went round the roundabout again. We went around the roundabout about ten times. The passengers in the car loved it, they were screaming and laughing. Every time we'd get to the exit, Daft Punk would say "one more time" and I'd go around another time.

Anyway, we got to the hike five minutes late. Everyone else was already there. The hiking guide was a blonde German woman.

"Has everyone done hiking before?" she asked.

There were about twenty people in the group and they all murmured "yes" and "yep".

I put up my hand. "I haven't."

"You've never been on a hike?" said the guide.

"No," I said. "In fact, I told my girlfriend this yesterday and she said I'm strange because hiking is something everyone's done."

There was laughter from the group.

"Well don't worry," said the hiking guide. "You stay next to me at the front and you will be fine"

The hike started. Immediately I was at the back of the group instead of the front.

Next to me was an elderly woman with two walking poles. "You don't look like you've never hiked before," she said, eyeing my hiking shoes suspiciously. "You look prepared."

"Oh right"

"You have hiking shoes," she said.

"Those are just my everyday shoes," I said. "Last year I had a strained muscle in my leg and the pain was so bad that I had to use crutches for two weeks. I think the strain happened because I was wearing the cheapest shoes possible. So now I wear expensive hiking shoes. And it seems to help."

I found out her name was Regina and she was from Brazil even though she looked Chinese and it turned out we go to the same gym, but I've never seen her because she does Zumba classes and I don't do Zumba classes because I have no natural ability for dancing.

As the hike went on, I spoke to pretty much everyone there: a mom and her teenage son from California; a high school English teacher from Poland; a Croatian girl who had 2 dogs, 3 cats, and 4 chickens at home ("one of the chickens is a rooster, the others are his bitches"); a Russian woman; a biologist from Germany. It felt like speed dating, except instead of looking for a life partner, I was meeting potential friends.

But after four hours I was still at the back of the group.

Then the hiking guide said something that changed everything: "Guys, I'm really sorry, but I just realised we're going the wrong way. We all have to turn around.'

Everyone turned around. I was now at the front of the group instead of the back.

"Okay," said the guide. "It looks like Paul's leading the way."

No pressure then. There was a path leading into a forest so I took one step forward, then another step. Step onto this rock, step down, step over that tree root. Jump up onto the boulder, jump off. Soon I was enthusiastically clambering onto fallen trees like Christopher Robin in the 100 Acre Wood. Hiking is easy. It's just walking. Everyone was following me. This was great.

We reached a cove. Stony beach and blue water. We all stripped down to our bathing costumes and swam into the sea. I'm scared of jellyfish but the water was clear so at least I could see jellyfish coming.

"So Paul, how's your first hike going?" asked a German guy.

"It's easier than I thought it would be," I said. "Hiking's just walking, isn't it? Which means I hike every day. I hike my sons to school. I hike to shops to buy food. I hike to the toilet. I hike four steps from the sofa to get the TV remote and then I hike four steps back. So I'm hiking all the time. In fact, I've been hiking all my life."

They laughed.

"What did you think hiking was going to be?" someone else asked.

"I don't know. Using ropes. A mountain sherpa named Pancho who says things like 'too much snow, too dangerous, we go back'. That kind of thing."

A Greek woman climbed up onto the rocks and dived into the water. Of course, I had to do it too. I climbed up and jumped off. Everyone clapped when I emerged from the water.

I like this, I thought. The water was cold, the jellyfish were probably surrounding me, but this was good, I felt alive. I decided this was the high point of my year so far. It was even better than my brother's wedding.

We all walked back to our cars. By this point, it was early evening.

"Does anyone want to get a drink?" asked the hiking guide.

"I told my girlfriend I'd be home by now," I said.

But you only live once so I went with the rest of the group to a bar. The nearest bar was at a Dutch caravan park so we drove there. Signs read things like "Open vanaf 8u30 Elke ochtend verse". Groups of Dutch people were watching a Euro 2024 football match. The men were bald and the women were overweight. The Dutch people looked just like English people: fat, wrinkled, and pink from sunburn.

I sat down and had a beer. I felt exhausted. Not from hiking but from being social all day.

The other hikers were talking about something when I overheard, "In Germany, I had fuck all the time but here I cannot find any fuck".

Okay. What.

"Oh my god, I love fuck too," said an Italian woman. "I have fuck every day after lunch."

What is going on.

"Oh my god, you know where I love fuck? I love fuck on the beach."

"I love taking photos of fuck and putting the photos of fuck on Instagram!"

"I put fuck in my cakes"

Did she just say she puts fuck in her cakes?

"Excuse me," I said. "Did you just say you put fuck in your cakes?"

There was a moment of silence. Then everyone burst into laughter.

"Quark," said a German girl. "We're talking about quark."

It turns out quark is a type of cheese with the taste and texture of yoghurt. In my defence, they were pronouncing it just like 'fuck'.

After the drinks, we all stood for fifteen minutes watching a car towing a caravan backwards out of the main gate of the caravan site, and then we got in our cars and drove home. I couldn't muster up any energy to talk so I drove in silence while the three girls in the back of the car talked between themselves. They talked about:

- a hot guy from the group today (not me)

- a creepy guy called Piero who tells all the girls they're beautiful and sends them private messages that say things like "I hope you have a good day today"

They probably talk about me when I'm not there. I imagine it's like this:

"That guy Paul, always so funny."

"Yeah, but like he's so old, right? He has children already He's like 50 or something? I mean, why is he hanging out with us if he's so old?"

"And did you see his socks? His socks had pictures of pizza slices on them. What kind of guy wears socks like that?"

Finally, 12 hours after I'd set out, I arrived home, The first thing I did was pull off my shoes. My feet stank of sweat. Then I went to check on the kids; they were already in bed. Girlfriend was angry at me for staying out so late. But after an hour she was okay so I guess she wasn't too mad.

So that was my first hike.