"Do it! Do it! Do it!" is what I seem to have been saying for the past 24 hours.

Any ultra-keeno reader may remember that over a year ago I went to look at a friend's B&B nearby, and came away totally depressed by how impossible it would be for me ever to aspire to their standards.  The result was a toss-up as to whether I should stay here, with my house crumbling around my ears, and two children who never venture out of the garden gate onto the moor outside; or downsize into something draught-free and comfortable, where everything works, near a bus-stop and a Costa's.

I can't remember what pursuaded me to stay.  It may have been Revered Son saying how much he loves coming home to relax, turn his music up to full volume, and proudly entertain his privileged schoolfriends in his dreaded 'Bothy'; or Beloved Daughter becoming increasingly involved with the local pony club; or simple inertia.  

But I recently attended a meet at my friends' hotel down the road, to discover I knew and felt welcomed by over half the people there.  A result of living here for nearly twenty years and becoming a part of the community, I suppose. However bonkers they may all think I am, it doesn't really matter.  It is a scenario that I will never be able to recreate anywhere else, and I treasure that feeling of belonging.

Last night  my friends with the B&B came to dinner. They arrived at the same time as my latest guests, and were immediately enthusiastically immersed in discussions about where to go and what to see around Dartmoor, looking at maps together, and admiring the evening sun setting behind the hill.  My friends are absolute natural B&Bers.  Their home is well located outside the most desirable village on Dartmoor, it's beautiful, their garden is outstanding, all is pristine, tasteful, comfortable, and works.  But they're not marketing themselves properly, are not getting the bookings. They're tired, are losing their nerve, and concentrating on other things which are less profitable, more time-consuming, and more exhausting.

"You need more rooms," (they only rent out one) I advised, "get yourselves properly SEO'd on Google - you can do it yourselves; rent the house out when you're not in it (they're off to Greece for two weeks); and charge double for more weddings. Bingo." (I'm not bossy, smug or complacent at all.) 

Then this afternoon one of the school Mums came over to ask me about B&Bing.  "You're in the middle of the moor, while we're nowhere, really," she said.  "We're about equidistant between Dartmoor and Bodmin moor, and quite near to lots of beaches on both the north and the south coasts, only about 10 minutes from the A30," she continued.  Well - there you have it. Centre of the South West.

Running a B&B is so much fun, and gives you such a feeling of achievement.  The guests are so nice - I've never had a dud - and there is nothing more enjoyable than hearing people admiring your home and knowing that in effect you are getting paid to make it attractive. I feel I've turned full circle - from chambermaid to graduate, to yuppie, to professional, and now I'm back to cleaning loos again.  But at least they're my own, and I'm well paid for it.

Anyway - the proof of my particular pudding will presumably go public on Four In A Bed.  They're coming to visit tomorrow afternoon to check me out.  If they decide to feature Wydemeet, I think it's going to be soon! Eeek!

Times Encounters has gone mental.

"Wot a Kisser!" my friend Jane emailed me excitedly the other day.  She is also signed up, as is every single single person I know.

She is so excited by her result, after  months of nothing happening, that when I went to stay with her last week, after a bottle of red wine she started 'messaging' about 1,000 people (including one or two girls) on my behalf, whom I would never have dreamed of contacting myself.  Eg she contacted lots of good looking men from the Top 20 who live miles away and will already be receiving 200 messages on a daily basis; and then a whole load of people simply because the site informed us that they were logged in at the time.

The next day I was inundated with replies. Despite the fact that Jane's computer hadn't worked properly, so the funny, charming, loving messages she had sent out had been turned into gobbledegook.

So since then I have been very busy practising my amateur writing skills bantering, if there is such a verb, with all my new admirers dotted around the country, instead of adding to this blog.

My favourite is a journalist who lives in an eco-house near Chippers (Chipping Norton to you and me),  who is game to play footsie at Beloved Daughter's Prep School Quiz Night next week.  He is a motoring correspondent and is going to drive me there in the latest Maserati. (He is not Jezza Clarkson, before you get any ideas.)  We'll believe all that in the unlikely event of it ever happening.  His writing skills are such that, even without a picture, at one stage he made it to Number 2 in the Times Encounters Most Popular List. I am very impressed.  I have yet to make it into the List at all, but I will keep on trying.

Anyway, he has challenged me to use the word 'moist' in my next blog.

So here it is. Moist.

"I'm Coming Back as a Man" may be on Radio 2's current playlists, but upon further reflection, I think I'd like most of all to come back as a dog.

This thought first crossed my mind when I heard that I had been accused of treating X like a dog.  "Lucky him," I said to myself.  Every need catered for, unconditional love.

Then, when I first met Mr Dumper, and an ancient, crippled black labrador hobbled out of the back of his Subaru Legacy, to tender encouragement and soppy tones of endearment, I thought, "That's how I want him to speak to me too."  Alas, it was never to be.

So, on to my next crazy adventure…

"That's the best possible reason for taking part in Four in a Bed," wrote charming Jane - one of the reality show's producers.  I received this potentially life-changing email 30 minutes before I was due to host a fancy dress party for 20 x 12 year old girls, after preparing B&B breakfast for four, and taking Beloved Daughter to a Pony Club Rally.  An Easter Egg Hunt, Fashion Show, Quiz, Jacuzzi, Dancing, Supper and Sleepover in Revered Son's joss-stick/tobacco reeking, teenage den of horrors, complete with semi-naked calendar of Kelly Brooks, lava lamp and flashing fairy lights, all still to be prepared.

I had written to Four in a Bed wondering whether it would be too late to change my mind, and whether they still had availability for Wydemeet to be featured on it, as I had a new objective in mind.  I had been in touch with a previous contestant who I liked the look of, emailed him asking him whether he might be gay, and we had subsequently had a nice chat and discovered we were both on internet dating sites.  I looked him up after our phone conversation and found that he was 48, looking for partners aged 26 - 46.  Not me then.  I'm 54.  But lying in the bath afterwards I came up with my cunning plan.  Times Encounters appears to be replete with fat, old, bald, dull men, whose lifestyles I have almost nothing in common with and who live 100s of miles away.  I'm fed up with it.  

What about giving up on that, and putting myself on Four in a Bed instead, and see what happens?

So I jumped out of the bath, sent off my email explaining my reasons for changing my mind, and hey presto!  They like it!

So maybe I'm going to be famous again!  The last time I was on telly was 25 years ago, on a show hosted by the emerging Carol Vorderman, when she was testing my ability as a graphologist, but that is another story.

How many ways are there of cooking an egg?

This morning I did my first omelette, complete with bacon bits and cheese.  It worked fine, thank goodness, despite my little non-stick pan feeling rough after I've used it for lots of poached eggs.  I have just ordered another, off my mate's highly successful www.onestopcookshop.co.uk.  

Yesterday I prepared Eggs Royale - toasted muffins with smoked salmon, poached eggs and hollandaise.  I also offer Eggs Florentine (with spinach) but not Benedict, as I don't always have cooked ham to hand.

Another speciality on our menu is the 'Wydemeet Special' - one egg made as an omelette, the other broken into it like a poached egg.  Nobody has asked for this yet, which is a shame, because it's a lot easier to prepare than it looks.

Most people ask for fried, poached or scrambled, even though I encourage everyone to ask for anything they can think of.

One of my guests, who was Thai/German/American, made a special request that I cooked his scrambled eggs 'properly'.  I was a touch insulted but didn't say anything.  The next morning I served him up what I considered properly cooked scrambled - soft and rich - and of course I had totally misunderstood him.  He meant 'well done'; and ordered 'hard easy-over' for the next morning.  I had to look that one up on Google.

Oddly, the most demanding thing anyone can order for breakfast is a boiled egg.  Did you see that episode of Gordon Ramsay laying into a chef, yelling: "You couldn't even cook a f..........g boiled egg!!" Well poor bloke.  They are very difficult to get right.  Especially here, because I cook on an Aga, and both plates are too hot to simmer water.  So I have to keep moving the pan around, which means that one minute it's boiling its head off and cracking the shell, and the next it's not boiling at all.

I have invested in various gadgets, including that pin-thing to let the air out, and a plastic oval thing which supposedly tells you whether the egg's inside is soft, medium or hard; but the main problem is that you simply can't see. I get butterflies every time I have to serve one, wondering what my guest is going to discover when they crack it open.

I have been conducting 'taste tests' for best eggs over the past few months; involving eggs from down the road, eggs from up the road, eggs from Mr Dumper, and eggs from Mum's neighbouring farmer.  For size, taste and value, I couldn't fault Mr Dumper's contributions, but now that he's history, Kind Neighbour's eggs are proving to be my mainstay.  They are large, rich, orange, and very fresh.  No one can fail with such eggs.  I have a lot of guests who say they can't make poached eggs, but they're easy if the eggs are fresh enough.  Even to get in and out of the pan!  

My aim these days is to produce poached and fried eggs so perfect that they look like pretend plastic ones.

"Only VERY bossy ladies please" requests 'Totdevoted' on Times Encounters.  I immediately sign him up as one of my 'favourites', and he returns the favour. 

I scroll down to find out more about him.

"I work in the City and I am smart, successful and driven at work," he says. "I am well-travelled and very well educated, cultured and well-read. I am seeking a long term relationship and REAL commitment - so no flings please." How exciting!

Skipping a bit, I get to, "I seek the kind of woman who demands worship and pampering and obedience from her man." FANTASTIC! blah blah "I do hope this piques your interest - if you understand how a man can adore worship and obey his diva Goddess... " errrrrr

For his ideal match: "I mean REALLY bossy and demanding"

"Body type: A few extra pounds; Curvaceous; Full figured"

I consider messaging back saying "I'm afraid I'm too thin." But it's all too weird.  Steer clear.

I don't know whether this internet dating stuff is evil, or a force for real good.  Both I suppose.  What I do know is that it is extremely time-consuming, addictive and brutal.

Even if you've ceased subscribing, they keep your details up online, unless you ask them not to, and every couple of days send you a selection of 'matches', who are usually short, fat, bald, broke, and live at least 100 miles away.  They never let you go.

I am constantly experimenting with the thing - you can check out who has looked at your 'profile'; and there's a 'Top 20' featuring the most favourited or messaged people who've signed up with them. The women look gorgeous and young, and their photos are often professionally posed and airbrushed, while the men are mostly hideous.  Some people 'favourite' everyone they can, hoping to get 'favourited' back again and thus into the Top 20. I haven't tried this yet but I wouldn't put it past me.

I don't think many people are deliberately dishonest, but some of my pics are nearly five years old simply because nobody's taken any of me recently, not because I was nearly two stone lighter in those days!

Anyhow - hold onto your seat... and watch this space!  It's going to be a rough old ride!

Last night I indulged myself with two episodes of 'Four In a Bed', the reality show featuring competing B&Bs.

Loyal readers will remember that the show asked me to be on it, and I haven't told you what happened next.

Well I refused, because they wouldn't allow Beloved Daughter (12) to come with me on the visits to other B&Bs, due to legal restraints, requirements for carers, nannies, bodyguards, licensing, restricted hours, etc etc etc.  Bummer! So I'm not doing it, which is a great shame, as it would have been a real laugh and a very interesting experience.

The outcome might prove fascinating too.  Ex-esteemed Partner told me that 'Probably the Cheapest B&B in Falmouth' where he is a regular, after being featured on 'The Hotel Inspector', received 62,000 hits on its website!  Well I wouldn't want that - it would be a nightmare! I've got the perfect number of guests already!

But hark!  I hear a car arriving.  My next guests are here.  I must go and welcome them...

I got dumped.

By email.

After a four month sort-of relationship.

Not impressed.  So being me, I rang him up and said so.  

So now I'm back on the old Times Encounters again.  Maybe I'll give Guardian Soulmates a go too.  It's possible the people on that are more thoughtful and interesting,  but the minute they hear I read the Daily Mail for its coverage of Britain's Got Talent (the whole of Page 3 was devoted to a performing Eagle Owl yesterday), they'll run away from me, howling in anguish.

I am a woman of substance.  I have a beautiful large home, a thriving business, financial security, two well-balanced (at the moment anyway) children at private school, land, an income, loads of friends, functional loving family, cordial relationship with X, hardly any baggage, hardly any bitterness, I am tall, fit, good looking (I hope anyway, can't really tell), friendly, funny and independent.

If were a man on that site, I would be eaten alive.  But because I'm not, it's a very different kettle of fish. I am insufficiently vulnerable.

Zoe Ball has just played a song on Radio 2 called "I'm coming back as a Man".  I'm off to download it onto my iPod.

"If you write about me on that blog of yours, I'll never speak to you again," warns my friend Stephen. As it happens, Stephen is, after all, still speaking to me, because that is not his real name.

I have to be careful what I put on here - I mean anybody could be reading this!  To try and keep myself in check, I always imagine my Mum is perching on my shoulder, telling me off, or Uncle Jock, ex-CEO of the AA, who once thundered at me: "I can't think why you want to tell the whole world about your love-life!" after I'd written an article for Harpers & Queen about blind dating people from Private Eye. That was back in the '80s.

The other thing is, of course, that I don't want my guests to think that they're going to be written about, and therefore not want to come here.  So I try to keep it vague.

But I can't help writing today. I am living vicariously off other people's love.

Wydemeet is a house of love. 99% of people who stay, come as a couple. 

We've had our first engagement here, by the stepping stones, as regular readers will know; we've had couples who've been married 40+ years, couples celebrating wedding anniversaries, and now we have a young couple on a 'MiniMoon', who got married on Saturday, which much to her delight, was Beloved Daughter's twelfth birthday.

I would want to come here if I were part of a couple.  It's terribly romantic, the rooms are spacious, soft and comfortable, you can sit in a hot tub together under the stars, or in front of the log fire in the cosy sitting room, you have breakfast side by side, in your pyjamas if you want, looking out at the trees in the garden outside, you can go back to your room for the rest of the day if you like,  the walks along the rivers and across the moors are private and spectacular. It's all a bit like Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs - it gives me faith that there is still deep love and affection in spades out there.

So regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that Esteemed Partner and I have ruefully, sadly, and mutually split, after three years of happiness together.  We're just too different. I didn't want to be too personal about it at the time because he is a private person, but it's a few months ago now, and he is still available to give the most fantastic therapeutic or relaxing massages to my guests - outside in the sun, or in the warmth of the sitting room in front of the log fire.

So it was straight back onto Times Encounters for me - my favourite diversionary passtime.  And guess what.  The Perfect Person popped up almost as soon as Esteemed Partner and I had bid our fond adieu. What were the chances of that? About one in five trillion.

We arrive at Grenoble Airport three hours prior to our flight, to ensure there is plenty of time for a party of 41 to check in.

We discover that our plane hasn't even left England yet, and will probably be delayed by around four hours.

I don't care.  I am still in a state of bliss.  No decisions, no responsibilities, I will just do and go and be wherever, and whenever I am told.  I am a remarkably obedient person for someone who is so cussed.

The airport is entirely choked with school skiing parties. 'Unicorn School' seems to have nearly fifty children, all in matching brightest blue. 

The people at check-in are clearly like the ones in 'Airplane', enjoying mixing up and matchmaking the children from the different schools.  Our coolest kid, who went from nought to skiing helicopter turns in the air in just one week, is horrified to find himself seated between the window and a strange 13 year old girl from another school.  He cant sit down, crouching against the wall of the plane, his mouth open in abject horror, until a teacher takes pity on him and swaps some children around, and he is next to a boy he already knows.

We are finally dropped back at school in a pitch black gale of horizontal rain at 4am, to find our cars without a torch or an umbrella.

Up again at 9am to prepare a picnic to beat that of Nemesis, the woman who stole my husband four years ago, and off to a football match of 21 of Revered Son's friends from his old prep school, on an exposed cliff outside Boscastle. The rain is still bucketing down and I have never seen the West Dart more torrential.

As it happens, it doesn't really matter what the picnic comprises, because Revered Son is captain of his side, broken thumb and all, and his friends crowd around him at the back of my cool courtesy car anyway.  Revered Son's team, "Twiglet Hotspurs", has won again, for the fourth year running, and this year, I promise Nicole, the organising Mum, that I will definitely get the huge silver cup, lovingly polished by X, engraved.  The adults hover around, quaffing plastic cups of chilly Cava, as their hair sticks to their heads in the downpour, and the hardcore, which turns out to be only Nemesis and me, repair back to Nicole's house for more.

Racing home again we still haven't unpacked, done the post, or replied properly to B&B enquiries, risking the disaster of double-booking. But no, we can hardly sit down before it's the next morning and Beloved Daughter's first official ride on Perfect Panda, my wonderful horse, in thick fog, high winds (you only get both at the same time on Dartmoor) and rain so heavy it's as if God is pouring an endless giant bucket of water over the whole of Devon.

I have given myself a couple of days' grace from the B&B to squeeze in some fun - more riding scheduled for tomorrow - and then it's back to work.  Hopefully I will have a new shower installed before our next guests arrive on Thursday.

Revered Son has just broken his thumb, by punching someone.

The game is called 'Bum'.  You form two lines opposite each other, and then individual children run down between the lines, as the others punch them as hard as they can.  The modern version of 'Strip the Willow'. The kind of thing you expect your children to learn, if you are stupid enough to pay for them to attend private school.

This is bad luck because Revered Son has been playing rugby all season at regional level, and is now engaged on an outward bound adventure course outside Barnstaple, which is clearly being run with all the ElfandSafety small print crossed, ticked and dotted.

But he's punched someone in the hip, broken his thumb joint and now can't go skiing.  Which means neither can his father nor his two friends, one of whom, it turns out, isn't insured.  That's £1000 gone for his poor mother.

So while I'm living it up in Italy with Beloved Daughter, Revered Son and X have moved into Wydemeet, which, frustratingly, I have failed to let out either for my skiing week, nor for Easter.  £2,500 down the drain, and no B&Bers booked in as a result.

It is an odd thought having X back living in what is now my home.  Where will he sleep? Revered Son (15) refuses to sleep in his own attic bed, as we found a spider on his lampshade in there last week. So he is currently in Bellever. No one is allowed in Dartmeet as it's now made up all clean and ready, by Sashka, for our next visitors. I don't suppose X will want to go back into my luxurious, rather pink, bedroom, 'Hexworthy', but I'm not too bothered if he does.

Also odd is that I have more communication with X during my Italy stay, than with anyone else.  First he is organising for the puncture in my courtesy car to be mended, then the puncture on my trailer; then the dishwasher blows up and needs to be repaired; the landline goes down again twice more, and Twiglet is collected from the Forest Inn next door - the kind couple who took him in with a smile with one minute's notice at dead of night for a fiver.  Meanwhile both Revered Son and X are clearly quite ill, with colds bordering on flu.  In the end it becomes apparent that they have had a very happy time, chatting, bonding and relaxing; finally leaving behind a bottle of Premier Cru Chablis and an immaculate home with everything working in it again for me. Funny how the world keeps on spinning.