God. If I were in my twenties, when I was a young and thrusting PR executive in West London, and could fast forward to my life now - well who would have thought?

Living alone with my two young children in the middle of nowhere, tonight I find myself in the pub down the road, listening to my Beloved Daughter's young friends playing the recorder and keyboards, while Alicia, daughter of Kind Neighbour, tap dances to the music, on a square white board. I have to admit, the youthful band is jolly good, and so is Alicia, who has now reached Grade 4.

It is the perfect jolly, warm scene of rural idyll, and I have recorded it on my camera to show my guests tomorrow how splendid life is in this remote hamlet.

I wonder what everybody might be thinking, if they notice at all, while I sit alone tucking into a surprisingly good Aubergine and Feta bake, the musicians' proud Mums huddled together on the sofa and the Dads standing at the bar, discussing farm subsidies over their Jail Ale.  I feel I'm not such a part of the local community any more, now that my children have moved from the wonderful village primary to their posh schools. The rest of our hamlet, who are mostly slightly older couples whose children have fled the nest, and have moved here since I arrived 17 years ago, have reconvened onto a long table.  I am not included.

I can't think of many other women who would be mad enough, or obstinate enough, to remain rattling around in their family home, determined to make it pay its way. And then turn up at the pub with just their small daughter for company, to enjoy a social, and to prevent themselves from making a mess in their own kitchen because its being rented out the next day.  I am very lucky indeed to know that Esteemed Partner will definitely be thinking of me, as he marks, literally, a million words of his students' dissertations, cosy in the cabin of his clapped-out trimaran, so stable on its mud bank in southern Portugal.

My feelings of mild isolation might have something to do with my current situation.  It's been like moving house today, waiting for someone else to take over my much loved home of so long.  Beloved Daughter and I are both hunkered down into my bedroom, she's on the hated air mattress, all our things piled high in the last spare room, needing to be retrieved and packed tomorrow.

I sat on the floor to watch telly last night because I didn't dare squash or stain the pristine white sofa and its plumped up cushions.  (I caught Twiglet lying on it this morning.) All the other rooms are closed to us, each waiting in its immaculateness for its new inhabitants.  It feels like camping in someone else's hotel.

Next time, when we know what to expect and half the things that we've had to worry about  on this first occasion will have been done, it will be much easier - it could almost become fun! It will be warmer, and we will be going directly off on a lovely holiday too.  It's not pleasant right now, but not many hours left until we are away, and then there won't be a lot to do except work out how to make the most of the next few days of transience.  I feel a visit to TK Maxx coming on...

"When you arrive, I think I will probably kiss you," I breathe down the phone.

A couple of hours later, and Dave draws up outside the house.  He is around 5'6" with grey hair and a beard, slight paunch, is wearing baggy old track suit bottoms and trainers, and is probably around 70.  I rush over, almost jumping up and down with excitement at his arrival.  He is the eighth and final carpet-man I have called.  I was warned he is semi-retired.  He has driven over direct from our phone conversation, ready to work straight away, and if necessary, on tomorrow's Bank Holiday Friday too!

Stephen arrives to see if he can sort out the electric gate using the rams I have bought from eBay for £16 (plus £72 P&P). He is very tired and is planning to take off the Bank Holiday weekend this year. Normally his only days off are Christmas and Boxing Day.  He says what I have bought are no good, and I might as well put them back on eBay.  He won't let me pay him for his time.

Sashka and Kathy are here again, working at lightning speed cleaning up seventeen years of accumumlated family clutter and filth, laughing as they go.

That was yesterday, and today I have a lump in my throat.  Patrick arrives in his giant army landrover to finish tidying the garden and to replace the twisted, knotted old piece of electric fence with 6' posts he is planning to bury into the rock-iron sod; Dave is back - hating his job of tidying up the carpet where numerous plumbers have repeatedly pulled it up, and laying a  piece on top of the new laminate of my new bathroom, against the advice of my entire family and all my friends; Sashka and Kathy are becoming stressed at the amount there remains to do; and I start swearing because the only thing my guests, who arrive tomorrow at 3pm, have asked for, is a DVD, and it's stopped working.

Sashka phones her friend Carl, who drops everything, drives directly over, and spends two hours going through the maze of wires behind all my AV apparatus in return for a cup of instant coffee. Meanwhile Ken, the insurance man, calls me for the eighth time in his determination to help make sure I have changed my insurance to 'commercial' in time for my guests' arrival. He, too, is now working on a Bank Holiday.

I don't think I've really done anything to deserve this kind of support.  I think people are just generally kinder than I am. I'm not sure I would be this good to anybody.

It's 2.30pm and I'm eating the remains of last night's leftovers, comprising a sausage and some spinach, when the panic alarm goes off as a result of Karen dusting around the bed.  I am proud because I haven't lost the key to stop it.  But the key doesn't work.  Nor does the switch in the airing cupboard, which already reads 'off', yet on and on the sound drums through all of our ears. It has been deliberately designed to drive you so barmy you can't even rape someone.

I know! Brilliant! I will plug the code numbers into the burglar alarm! That might stop it. If it doesn't, then I am stumped.  I punch the numbers in, and merciful peace.

Blimey, my house is really showing us its tricks today.  I pray it will behave itself for the next week. My list of instructions of how to deal with all its quirks has reached three pages!

I don't think this rental is going to cover its costs, but it's made me focus on sorting my house out, and we will be much better prepared for the next one. If I have any friends left to help me by then...

"That'll be gravy," I advised Kathy, when she reported that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't remove the stains from the bathroom carpet.

"What on earth was gravy doing in the bathroom?" she asked, astonished.

"It would date back to when the bathroom was Freya's bedroom, when she was ill," I explained.

Sashka and Kathy are here every day now.  The number of coffee and fag breaks we are enjoying, if that's the right word, are on the increase.  I have discovered that smoking in my home is illegal, since it became a public place.  I'm not sure the mercury has risen over 0C for a week now, and at the moment it is snowing yet again, with a wishy-washy wintry sun peaking through for the first time in living memory.

Just like the lead-up to the bed-and-breakfast weekend, I can feel myself, despite Sashka and Kathy's best efforts,  sliding back into panic-mode. Kathy felt the waves of it hit her this morning.

The carpet man didn't turn up, the hot-tub man didn't turn up, the plumber didn't ring back,  the gardener didn't turn up, my Auto Trader ad has been hacked into, or 'fished' so that I have had to change my password on everything, and the electric gate man, who hasn't returned a call or email in two months, has finally called to say he will pop by tomorrow. Meanwhile, whilst it is relatively straightforward to insure your house for renting out in its entirity, or for running a B&B business in, it appears to be impossible to insure it for a combination of the two.  I have three bespoke brokers on the case, who haven't quite got all the info they need. One of them is querying my use of the word 'entrepreneur'. "Well put 'single mother trying to make ends meet' or something," I suggested instead.

The piles of logs - well actually to be exact tree trunks - outside our house are now nearly touching the sky, and it feels like I am drowning in them.  I have warned my guests what to expect - I am so worried that they will be disappointed as they approach the house and see nothing but a huge pile of timber wrecking what was once a beautiful valley.  The wood comprises the livelihood of Kind Neighbour, for whom hill farming no longer pays the bills, so I can't moan about it too much.

Sashka and Kathy have spent days cleaning every cupboard and corner of every room in order to prepare the house properly for our visitors.  They have got as far as the main spare, Beloved Daughter's and Revered Son's rooms so far.  Every bed has to have a mattress and pillow protector, duvet, ironed sheet and duvet cover, and three towels. All are pristine new 100% Egyptian cotton.  I am going to have to leave the heating on 24/7 with this unseasonal weather - a fact which physically hurts! I really don't think I am going to make any profit at all from this first letting - but I comfort myself with the thought that it is nearly all stuff that had to be done anyway in due course.

I am worried about my horse who is coughing - it is too cold to suddenly leave the horses out so somebody is going to have to visit twice a day, and muck out while our guests are here; I am worried about packing for three people each spending the next week in two different countries; and I am worried about my stupid car which still hasn't sold and is deteriorating outside my house, and which now has a flat tyre.

And then in the middle of all of this, an email has arrived from my lawyer which means I suddenly have to get divorced as well, before she goes on holiday.  The forms are endless. I have signed off whatever it was this time, and hope for the best!

PS I didn't poison Esteemed Partner at all.  He had caught a bug, and his phone was in the next door room.

Oh help! I think I might have poisoned Esteemed Partner!

He normally has a stomach of iron because, like me, he was brought up on left-overs,  and we both spent our childhoods living in schools. We share fond memories of endless catering packs of dried 'Chicken Chasseur' being served up throughout the holidays - in his case on the family yacht, in ours in the VW camping van.

We both had 'war mothers' who believed in saving everything, economising, and no waste. In EP's case it meant hard loo roll, and margarine instead of butter, even though his Mum was a 'hon' and came from one of the most prestigious families in the land. In my case every leftover was saved in a plastic pot in the fridge, down to the last pea.

So we are both proud of our instinctive embrace of the left-over, and our resulting little weekly compost bins.

Yesterday, I came up with the perfect occasion to use the out of date Fois Gras.  Granny (82) had driven the eighty miles from her home in Dorset to listen to Beloved Daughter play "Oops I did it again" by Britney Spears on her flute in the school music competition, followed by supper and staying the night.

The little round tin of Fois Gras was centre piece on the kitchen table.  It was so discoloured you couldn't read the exact sell-by date (I wasn't telling the whole truth in my last blog), and it sat in two orange rings of fatty rust. I prepared a version of Melba toast using sliced wholemeal bread in the toaster, and opened our treat with a flourish.

There was some brown stuff inside with white on it, and a few grey/blue marks around the edge.

"Just what it's supposed to look like," I announced, and sniffed it. It smelt fine.

I cut off the blue bits and as Granny, EP and I demolished it we discussed how old it really was.  We decided that Granny had brought it back from a trip to France around ten years ago.

It left a weird sticky sort of layer in your mouth after eating it, but tasted fine.  We had Lidl's best Three Fish Bake after that, followed by raspberry cheesecake and profiteroles.

This morning EP complained of having felt queasy all night and getting no sleep. I felt a bit sick and headachy, probably from mixing Cava with white wine and red wine. Granny was positively bouncing, and did all the washing up.

I have left messages on EP's mobile and landline, but no answer.  I hope he's not in hospital.

Meanwhile may I reassure anyone who might once have been interested, I would never try serving such a thing to guests or clients!!

In two weeks time I'm going to be homeless.

I've rented my house out for a week over Easter.

Kathy, Sashka and I have 'working' coffee and fags twice a week now, sometimes we even sit in the kitchen because it is so much more comfortable sitting down inside, and nobody's going to know.

We are all armed with lists, and because of this powerhouse of a team, I'm not panicking.  Quite.

Sashka's got an additional new job overseeing the rental on another Dartmoor house, and the stories she comes back with make me quake in my wellies.  She says it takes twenty minutes to make each bed because they have six pillows, and cushions as well! What are you supposed to do with all those cushions when you're trying to sleep? I can't think of anything more constructive than throwing them on the floor. Susannah, who rents out her luxury home in Helford, has only one set of cushions, which she uses for photoshoots, moving them around for each bedroom-shot.

Sashka says the converted barn she now works in has a sunny seating area with views to the sea twenty miles away, one wall being made entirely of glass, and apparently this one room is longer than my kitchen and dining room put together!  She says the kitchen is twice the size of mine, all gleaming stainless steel and granite.  She couldnt find the plug sockets in it because they are horizontal, built into the work surface.

Huh!  Who would want to come to an immaculate shiny showhouse in the middle of Dartmoor eh? Dartmoor is for MUD.

I have tried to think of a reason why someone would rather come to my place rather than to this nouveau barn - and I've come up with one.

At my place you can shout your head off and no one will hear you except the sheep.  Now that's quite good isn't it? We've fixed up a karaoke with a couple of mikes coming through Esteemed Partner's PA system, and you sing to karaoke versions of songs you look up on the huge telly screen which you can get via YouTube, resulting in surround-sound underwritten by my special woofer I got second hand off eBay for £400. Leave the French doors open and you can blast the socks off those belted galloways placidly roaming the moor.  One beautiful gentle balmy sunny evening last summer, Revered Son used our system to serenade a pack of girl-guides camping 1/2 mile away down by the river.

My list of what to do before I say goodbye to my home appears endless, inexhaustable.  Esteemed Partner is being amazing and has arranged for Kind Neighbour to put some of the gravel from the council pile outside my gate onto the drive.  Patrick is clearing the garden of sticks and leaves. I have arranged for a professional contractor to clean and service the hot tub regularly, called the plumber re the water neutraliser, found a bloke to tidy up the carpets, booked the window cleaner, and my next jobs are to arrange insurance and smoke alarms.

Meanwhile Kathy and Sashka are working double hours together cleaning out every cupboard, piece of crockery and glass.  I hear them hooting with mirth while I'm trying to Get On.  They call me Mad Mary or Lady Muck behind my back,  and think it's really funny that I'm still saving the tin of fois gras that my Mum brought back from France for a special occasion, even though its sell-by date was April 3rd 1997.

I am increasingly unsure that I could be going ahead with this, without my amazing little team.  They just pack me off, think it all through, arrange their own agenda, and get on with it.

I'm going to stay with my Mum in Dorset for the first two nights, then hopefully blag a night with a friend, and then I've booked a night in a B&B down the road for £32.50.  That will be interesting. Hopefully they won't see me as competition as I'm charging a minimum of £40 per head, based on two sharing, for a minimum of two nights.  In truth, I'm anticipating letting out my best en-suite for £120 a night for a minimum of two nights, otherwise I'm not sure I can really be arsed with this B&B bollocks. Early mornings, being nice first thing,  frying eggs ........ hopefully I will come up with a solution to all these issues if I ever get a customer. No enquiries since the first one...

Hurrah! Ex has volunteered to drive all the way to Truro to watch Beloved Daughter play in the netball B-team in subzero temperatures, leaving me free all alone, once again, in my rather large and very cold house, to 'Get On', with the whole day to myself and Twiglet.

Trouble is, 'Getting On' can be SO SLOW!

I was becoming gloomier and gloomier and slower and slower looking for better pictures to pinch off the internet to illustrate this site with, when - KERRRRPOW!!!!

A very nice lady has just rung, asking whether I am 'Wydemeet'. My first ever bed and breakfast enquiry!  I am raised from my lethargy and straight onto my blog to report on my success! With a new picture at the top of the page of somebody else's writing. Do you like it?

"How did you find me?" I asked her.  She didn't know - she had been passed on details by her husband, but really - it's only TWO HOURS since the Wydemeet phone number, 01364 631390, has been listed by BT!

How fantastic is that? So thank God I now have an energy boost and can reapply myself to ringing up the remaining 52 speaking agents on my list, on 'my poet' Matt's behalf, in the hope of getting him a well-rewarded gig. Yippee! Actually I think I will go and celebrate with a coffee and a fag first, I am so excited!

She can't come, by the way - the lady ringing about Bed and Breakfast, as it's during the school holidays. But who cares?!

Another hopefully constructive thing I've done today is to move the published address of my Range Rover to my sister's house in Fulham, and added £500 back onto the price.  It's been a month on EBay, and two weeks now on AutoTrader.  I havent had a single enquiry from AutoTrader that wasn't a scam.  Four scams!  Beware!

It's been three and a half years now, since my Ex exited.

The sense of disruption is still here. I wonder how long it will take to go away.

I have just been visited by Olga - I bid at a pledges evening for her to come and help me with my garden.  She was widowed, many years ago. Over a cup of Earl Grey and a fig roll, she mused that of course I will still feel unsettled.  The sense of not sure whether you're coming or going remains for a long time, following on from a couple of years of  of shock, bewilderment and disbelief, she told me.

I'm feeling like this because I've been wondering why I find myself living alone with two children, in a five-bedroomed house twenty minutes from a pint of milk, with so many bedrooms that I have to rent most of them out to make ends meet. Potty. Especially when Revered Son would much prefer to live on a main road  with buses, near friends, cinemas and coffee shops. Maybe even London, but being a Dartmoor hillbilly, he is still nervous of crossing the road, asking for things in shops, the underground, and being mugged. When the children were little, playing I Spy, they would regularly say, "I spy something beginning with 'H'.  The answer was 'House'.

My sense of disruption is caused by considering whether I should move.  But no. I think I belong here now. I've promoted myself, after 17 years, from 'Blow In' to 'Incomer', and know most of the people I drive past. Revered Son will just have to learn to enjoy walks, while Beloved Daughter's riding skills must continue on their rapid upward trajectory.

Meanwhile Olga says I have a very nice woodland garden.  She is going to come back and plant some 'drought pots' to give it some colour after the initial Spring flourish. Meanwhile I must ask Patrick to come over and pick up sticks, and rake up leaves.  We are 'all systems go' before my first guests arrive!

Look what I got back to after Beloved Daughter's riding lesson this morning! At bloody last! A nice friendly email from an oceanographer called Diane Joy who is such a loving Mum that she wants to buy my Range Rover for its published price and give it to her son! What's more, she's a Christian, so she won't be trying any funnies!

Her email goes:

"Hi there, Sorry for the late reply, Well can you assure me that it's in good state and that i will not be disappointed with it.I'm ready to pay your asking price and to be honest, i wanted to buy this for my son as (Gift) and i want it to get to him as surprise gift, but the issue is i am an oceanographer and i do have a contract to go for which starting today and am leaving any moment from now just trying to send you this message" blah blah blah, saying that she'll pay for it via Pay Pal and send an agent to collect it, ending "God Bless You".

I've had the wretched car on eBay so long that the ad has run out, despite reducing the price and taking out the copy and pictures referring to its various dents and scratches.  So only yesterday I signed up to AutoTrader for £45, and I've got a keen buyer already!  A teeny weeny little voice in me whispered 'hesitate'. So I forwarded the email to my friend Miriam who is the ex-policewoman.  She screamed back "Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!" and directed me to all the websites detailing identical scams, right down to the oceanographer bit.

So I wrote back to 'Diane Joy' :

'Hi Diane
I am so glad you would like to buy my car.  And how lovely to be dealing with another believer. I very much look forward to meeting your agent.
God Bless You too
WPC Plod'

Sadly I have received no further communication from her/him; and all three of 'Mazza's Motors' continue to block up the driveway.

The other day one of the few people I'd told about this site said, "If you name me in your blog I will never speak to you again!".

This happens to be one of my favourite people, and it got me thinking.  Other people are considerably more protective of their privacy than I am, and my not remembering this has got me into trouble before!

I have checked the issue with another close friend, who was actually the biggest motivator and inspiration behind my doing this at all. Let's call her Miriam.  She used to be a policewoman, and she was optimistic about all the confidentiality issues that I might find myself facing.  She pointed out how much comes up just from Googling someone, and then sent me a list of over 30 sites which can be used to track down every one of your most private moments.  It's scary really that with all the benefits the internet brings, you can kiss goodbye to your privacy.

Someone else mentioned one of my favourite columnists and authors - Lucy Pinney, who wrote "A Country Wife". They said that she had stopped writing because, as a result of her column, she's got no friends left to write about.  I will probably call her to find out if this really is the case.  So sad, as she is a far better writer than I am.

On the other hand I really, truly, do not want to piss off my mates and loved ones.  So I am going to go through all the blogs I have written and work out some formula to blank out their faces.  I hope it works!