Well Blow Me Down.

I'm sitting here looking at two cheques made out to me. One is for £2,500; and the other is for £350. They both arrived today in the post - the first time the postman has made it to our house in his two wheel drive in five days, what with the snow.

So it's worked.

I really am going to rent out my home in its entirity. And be richly rewarded for doing so.

Now all I've got to do is to buy a high chair and a cot, and two blobs to go on the end of the strings that turn the lights on in the bathrooms.

I'm feeling a bit wobbly and spaced out about all of this. It has been a vision for so long. And now it is a reality.

So much less stressful than doing a proper job like the PR I used to do for so many years.

While these strangers are enjoying my house, I think I might go skiing!

And while the second lot are here, I have already accepted a kind invitation from my sister to go and stay in one of the most luxurious country estates there is, just outside Sienna, in Italy.

How hard can life be?

They always said my middle name was 'Midas'.

My little patch of Dartmoor has been under snow for a week now.

As it's become icier and icier I have left my daughter to board at her school for a couple of
nights, and Esteemed Partner is stranded in Ashburton, his ancient Corsa sitting outside my door with a flat battery.

I am marooned, in the middle of nowhere, in a five bedroom house, all alone, surrounded by snow and ice. It's wonderful!

It did cross my mind that if I slipped and broke my leg while getting the horses in, I would die alone in the dark in the blizzard. So I trod carefully.

But otherwise there is suddenly all the time in the world to get on with things. Such as sorting out a picture for next year's personalised Christmas card. I've got real snow, and haven't put away our Christmas decorations yet, so there is still a variety of props easily to hand.

For our 2012 Christmas card I had struggled, as, because the winter had been snowless, I had no new snowy family pictures for VistaPrint to use. Instead I used one of our house glowing in the dark, under stars, looking a bit like a pumpkin. And for my advertising website, normally I would have used a summery sunny picture of the house, but, no surprises, we didn't have any proper sun during 2012 either!

I think my Ex and I have finally agreed our financial settlement, and hopefully now we can get divorced at last! Tra la!

It's taken 3 1/2 years, and I am proud of us both, because I don't think a single cross word about it has been exchanged between us for the past twelve months, since he declared, "This is War!"

A wise solicitor advised that whoever might be at fault in the breakdown, however subtly or obviously, you will always lose out financially unless you marry someone richer than you are in the first place.

Throughout these years, I have been gently, kindly and wisely guided by a charm (as in 'of goldfinches', according to my Thesaurus, but it seems the appropriate collective noun here) of grown-up men (yes there are such a things), who allow me to vent my spleen, and before I get to "and another thing", they patiently suggest how I might communicate in a more pleasant manner.

So intead of yelling "That's a bloody stupid idea!" I have been advised to describe how said idea might affect me or make me feel. Hence "If you do that, I am concerned that it might impact on x, y and z" may prove more constructive, they suggest.

I have tried it, and damn me, it's worked! So now we will soon be free to go our separate ways! Perhaps I should have given it a go a bit more often during our marriage - I wonder where we would be now if I had?

Beloved Daughter is jumping up and down squeaking. My underarms are sweating and my heart is pounding. We watch the clock - five, four, three..

"It's ours!" We leap about the kitchen in joy, clasping our hands together and grinning at each other.

I have just bought a 1999 Ford Focus off eBay for £831. It's in Southampton and it's blue.

Post divorce I am seriously broke and have to downsize my life. The Range Rover is the first thing that has to go. It is haemorrhaging money. £130 a week on diesel for the twice-daily 26 mile school run across the middle of Dartmoor. £750 for four new tyres. £500 for a belt. £500 for an air bag and now another £500 for a compressor. All since December.

So I am going 'reverse chic' with my new old Ford Focus. I can't wait to show it off in the school carpark. It will be the only one, whereas there are five other Range Rovers. My new car is straightforward simple proof to one and all, if any were needed, of the havoc She has played in our lives, and of the all too real affects of Her shenanigans. I am going to park it next to her BMW and grin at Her.

But hey - what am I doing now? I'm at it again! It's such fun! I've just pressed the button twice and discovered that I am likely to become the proud new owner of a Land Rover (£1,500) as well as a Mitsubishi Shogun (£2,450). Help! What if I get both? And now I'm not sure I want either anyway! Fingernail biting time - and five days to go!

I lose the Land Rover (hurray!) but eBay emails me to inform me that I am the lucky new owner of an old Shogun based in Swindon (silver).

Oh dear. Now I've got three cars, they're scattered all over the country, and I'm marooned all by myself, snowed in, in the middle of Dartmoor. I am a bit alarmed at what I might find myself doing next!

I am a vexatious litigant.

The local magistrates are beginning to recognise me, as I have been up in front of some of the same ones twice now.

It is not true that any old private individual can go through with a small claims. To do it, I think you have to be brave, educated, slightly agressive, and have a bit of time available. People like my Mum could never do it in a million years.
 
Whenever I arrive at court and check the list, I am always the only person representing myself. Other people seem to use solicitors, and the rest are companies. It's pretty scary. I definitely have to pay a visit to the loo before venturing into the magistrate's room.

At the end, even if I win, which I nearly always do, I hardly ever seem to end up with any recompense, as most of the people who get sued are used to it, and know how to play the system by disappearing when the hapless, and in my experience helpless, bailiffs turn up.

I have wasted days, weeks, months following up cases, to the distress of all those around me, as to be effective I feel I have to wind myself up into a total frenzy before progressing the case. But the satisfaction lies in the knowledge that these w..........s  who are prepared to tread all over everybody, don't get to treat me like a helpless cretin.

I warned my plumber that I had sued my previous plumber. He didnt believe me, so now, after paying £2000 up front for him to not mend my central heating, I am suing him too.

I sue people who I think are trying to rip me off, and who I believe would be prepared to rip off people like my Mum, my ex-mother-in-law, or any other gentle folk simply trying to mind their own business. I have an entire filing cabinet drawer called 'Angry of The Moor".

I don't always win. I got my comeuppance and messed up my credit rating when I refused to pay my burglar alarm company, because their invoice was so much higher than their quote.  When I lost my case in court I forgot to pay up in time. Error.

I have won against BT twice - £3000 in all. I've also won against a holiday company, a removals firm, cutlery company, my two plumbers, and a professional horse-riding eventer. I am currently considering whether to sue my electric gate company.

My ex-mother-in-law paid over £3000 for our gate, a decade ago. During that time the longest it has ever worked without problems is about two years. The minute it breaks down we have scores of sheep, cattle and ponies running all around our 'garden' and into the other farmer's fields beyond. I tell you, those animals are on automatic pilot.

The gate is a normal, but big and heavy 5-bar wooden thing. Underneath it is mud, covered in sheep, horse and cow poo, several inches deep, as all the animals wait outside the gate, for hours and days, for it to break down again.

My favourite form of footwear is high-heeled suede boots. My hair is not good in the rain - I look like Esther Rantzen if it is wet. When the gate breaks down I have to get out of the car, into horizontal rain, wade through the mud and push open and closed the mildewed reluctant centre piece of all my nightmares, climbing back into my prestige vehicle with slime all over my feet, chest and hands.

Last month I made nearly enough money from my film crew of five staying for bed, breakfast and dinner for two nights, to cover the cost of a broken control panel, after I had just paid £150 for the gate company to supposedly to put everything right after a series of five faulty switches had been fitted, complete with an invasion of animals on every occasion. Two weeks later they want £645 + VAT because the motor has now broken.

Amanda next door doesn't really understand what my problem is. She suggests I go back to a latch. Or perhaps to London.

"It's the end of the lane" gasped a fellow swimmer at my health club.

The health club is situated opposite the county hospital, and I think a lot of the patients are prescribed membership. Whatever - a huge number of them, considering it calls itself a 'health club' - look very unhealthy indeed to me. There seems to be a disportionate number of elderly, overweight, handicapped, hunchbacked and single limbed members, compared with the general population. And that doesn't count the tattooed brigade with their Number 1s. Especially considering it costs £54 a month, so it's not representative of the world at large. Whatever - it's hardly the Hurlingham darling.

On Mondays and Fridays at 10 o'clock they hold an hour's aquarobics session, loud music blaring out of a too-small speaker, so that you can't really tell what each tune is. The disadvantage of these is that the lifeguards block off one of the two lanes provided for bone fide members of the club who actually swim lengths, leaving us all with only one lane to pound up and down. Or in my case, paddle along in a leisurely manner, getting in everyone's way, usually kicking a couple of people in the head as I go.

If you're lucky, the other swimmers are female, moving gracefully through the water without splashing. It's the men who show off, going as fast as they can making waves and getting water in the mouths and eyes of people trying to quietly pootle along minding their own business. One day I will say to one of them "Ever thought of swimming lessons, mate?"  It's locally referred to a 'Lane Rage'.

 But the upside of the acquarobics is that I get out of the pool feeling thin and young. You can see that all this splashing around to music clearly doesn't work. In my three years of membership all the ladies doing it still look the same. (There aren't any men - I expect they are all out earning enough to pay for their wives' health club membership.)

I get out after my thirty lengths and walk slowly around the pool to the jacuzzi, to demonstrate to them that, although I cannot boast anything like a perfect body, proper swimming is a considerably more effective and efficient means of maintaining some degree of fitness. Then I spend ten minutes in the warm bubbles, feeling smug and expounding my theories to the other people enjoying their special moment of relaxation.

It's not long before I get the whole jacuzzi all to myself.

I lost my rag with the garage man yesterday. He had failed to phone to tell me that the compressor for my Range Rover hadn't turned up.

"Don't you realise that I have only twenty hours a week in which to earn enough to support my family?" I shouted. "I have bust a gut to get here an hour earlier than I need have, and all for nothing!"

To fill that hour, I should have gone to Costa's for a Skinny Cappuccino, to contemplate what I had said. Instead I went searching for half-price offers in the Co-op, even though I'd had a Tesco delivery earlier in the day, and as a result, was still late to pick Beloved Daughter up from school.

But I've thought about it since. The reason why I am permanently stressed and in a hurry, is because I visit the health club twice a week, ride my horses twice a week and muck them out most days, watch a child playing in a sports match once a week, and restrict myself to one 'Lady Who Lunches' a week. And by 'support the family' I mean 'earn enough to pay my half of the children's private school fees'.

I suspect I ought to feel ashamed of myself for being so horrid. If the nice man knew the real reasons as to why every hour means so much to me, I don't suppose he would be very sympathetic. Perhaps I need to visit a Life Coach. But of course I don't have the time.

Managing Expectations
 
My ten year old daughter  had 'the worst day of my life' yesterday.

So bad that she hid in the linen cupboard, and then ran away, for the first time ever, onto the open snow-clad moor, despite her fear of sheep.

Her day went thus:

Lie-in until 9.30am, then a warmed pain au chocolat and glass of apple juice brought to her in bed.

Out to slide on the ice at the bridge outside our gate, with her little girl friend  from next door.

Met by Mummy, armed with coca-cola, hula-hoops and jaffa cake bars for lunch.

The Dartmoor Hill Pony Display team meeting, organised and attended by oldschool friends aged 10 - 15 preparing a performance for Devon County Show.

A practice run-through, followed by tobogganing, as the sun set over the snowy Dartmoor hills, and the ponies nuzzled the laughing girls in the sledging field.

A drive to Exeter Services to meet my son's lift-share back to school, where Daughter chose chicken nuggets and chips from Burger King for supper.

A long soak in an oilatum-filled bath, followed by bed.

The problem was that her friend from next door had only played for ten minutes before deciding to go home, and I had almost immediately made the error of discussing the possibility that Daughter might board for a few nights at school, if the snow continued. So she decided to refuse to go to the pony-meeting she had been looking forward to so much - and disappeared.

So often, it seems to me that one's happiness is reliant on one's expectations. Maybe it's better to be a glass half empty person and then you must be almost permanently pleasantly surprised!

PS Sometimes my children's diets are a little more healthy than that described above!

Ben Hardon has contacted me via Owners Direct about renting my house!

His comprises my third enquiry, even though my entry on the Owners Direct website has only been up for a month or two! It's going to work! I am going to make my fortune by renting out my house! He has completed the form and says he wants to stay with his five children for two nights, January 31st and Feb 1st.

"I'm single too! love to stay with my children. FYI i have a big willy!" he writes. I note with increasing dismay that the email address he gives is [email protected]

I'm not sure what to do about this - whether to report the incident to Owners Direct or what. So I forward his message to my great mate Susannah, who has two houses for rent via Owners Direct herself.

She is horrified, having never been contacted by a weirdo, and advises me to play down the 'single mum' bit on the copy of my website entry.

Driving Revered Son back to his school for the beginning of term, when he asks me how the new rental business is going I hesitantly tell him about this incident.

Oh how he larfs.

"That was me! I was typing it up, in the kitchen, while you were preparing supper last night," he chortles.

I give myself another mental reminder to amend the typo that is still on display for all to enjoy on my website entry Property Ref E7392: "Plenty of room for willies, macs and outside toys in the cloakroom".