We've had our first betrothal!  I was forwarned that this may be on the cards, and I suggested the stepping stones where the Swincombe meets the West Dart, by the swing, as the ultimate romantic spot to ask; and she said yes!

We all celebrated with a bottle of chilled champagne served on ice from my Tiffany's glass ice bucket - a wedding present from my best friend - using the flutes which were also a wedding present from my other best friend; in the sitting room in front of the log fire. Accompanied by Kettle crisps and cake.  And I put red roses in their room.  And gave them the phone to ring everyone they know with the wonderful news.

Sheer Bliss!

Not only am I addicted to looking up Wydemeet on Google and Trip Advisor.

I am also an addict for Ebay. With this new B&B business I feel I have an excuse to buy new (or sometimes old) things all the time, and at the moment I am making about 20 bids a week!

Yesterday I bid £2 for a black and white spotted apron for Dearly Beloved Daughter, who has offered to clear up breakfast and tidy our guests' rooms for £3 per hr on Saturday, while I visit Revered Son at his school because it is his 15th birthday.

My latest approach to using Ebay is to press the 'time left' column, so up come all the things that no-one really wants, and with no time left for anyone else to make a bid. Try it - you'll find that Ebay is selling a car almost every five seconds, lots of them at silly prices.

Anyway, my latest triumph was buying a carpet.  A few years ago, at vast expense I stupidly covered our kitchen floor with that sisal grass stuff, where all the old bits of food go down the cracks, it shrinks if you get water anywhere near it, you cant wipe anything off it and it stains with immediate effect. Well it did look nice on the first day. So to protect it I bought a nice rug from Trago Mills for about £90, which very quickly also got stained with all the gravy, coffee and red wine which we habitually spill onto it.

Sashka has been desperately but hopelessly trying to make our kitchen look clean and hygienic for when I offer 'tea and cake' in the kitchen to my guests on their arrival.  An impossible task.  It looks disgusting.

So what sort of flooring should I replace it with? And how on earth much would that be to get it all fitted properly? And then bingo. Brainwave.  If I could get a big carpet just the right size, I could just pop it on top of all the stained ones and no-one would be any the wiser.

So I measured up and put 'carpet 111" x 85" or something into the Ebay search.  And do you know what? Up it came! An all wool, earth red, unused carpet from Trago with its £299.99 price tag still attached!  No bids, a minimum price of £60, and located not too far away in Truro.

So it's mine now.  Esteemed Partner kindly picked it up on his way back from Falmouth, and brought it home, collecting Dearly Beloved Daughter on his way, the carpet sticking through the sunroof of his ancient Corsa (he had checked the weather forecast before setting off).  He was gobsmacked to find it fitted my kitchen perfectly, with a 1/2" margin all the way around.  He should have predicted my immaculate planning. I'm clever like that.

With all the mank old carpets still underneath, it's so springy it's like a trampoline. I just hope nothing below goes quietly mouldy.

(originally written for my private 'Surviving Solo' website)

So, what's the point of it all?

I've turned into a total B&B bore and am still short of time because I'm trying to write a book, working title "Surviving Solo" which has got completely held up after 40,000 heartfelt words, and now needs an entire re-write as things havent quite panned out as predicted.

I'm also writing a second, particularly banal blog on my B&B website (www.wydemeet-dartmoor.com) which I understand will help keep it Search Engine Optimized - even though the drivel I pop in there is of little use or interest to anyone. I daren't write anything controversial or I might put off potential customers!

With demand for my B&B services having fallen off its cliff I must now move into Stage 3, which is to promote its existence to every contact I have - over 2000 'contacts' on my computer - ie everyone I've ever exchanged an email  with over the past ten years.

I am pretty scared of this prospect - my contacts range from national press editors, to people I've sued, to speakers agents, to past and existing B&B customers.  I am bound to say something that will offend somebody somewhere.

And after that I have to move on to selling via Facebook and Twitter.  Even worse than the above, I gather I have to 'hashtag' the entire world - not just a handful of contacts - and entice all and sundry to come and stay at my place by saying something short and pithy about it, which will go viral.  I wish!

And then finally somehow I have to make this blog commercial, after so much time, effort and thought has gone into it, or there's not really much point to its existence. How? I suppose Ive got to tell my 2000 contacts about it for a start, and hope there's not too much that's too offensive in it anywhere. And then include advertising space on it or something.

I may be a natural marketing person to my core, but the thought of people I vaguely know being bothered by stupid emailed messages saying "There's been a lot of action on your Facebook account recently" or "Here's the latest news from Twitter" as a direct result of my trying to flog them something, fills me with abject horror!

I gather this is how things get sold these days, though, and people accept the process.

I guess the only way to find out is to try it.

And then dig myself a hole and bury myself away with my head held in shame, for the rest of the winter.

One of the many fascinating things about starting Wydemeet B&B has been learning to use the social media and maximising website visibility.

I have spent just about as much time on this as preparing the house for my guests! You could say I am obsessed with it! Poor Beloved Daughter - whenever she sits down there I am back on my i-pad researching what everyone else is doing and finding out how I can do it as well, or even better!

A huge number of B&B bookings are made through agents such as booking.com, which operates on its own, and one called Eviivo which covers lots of the others.  They are very useful because they pay to be right at the top of any search you may make on Google, such as 'Dartmoor B&B', which makes sure we get listed.  They take  up to 15% per booking generally.

But I have been working very hard to find out how to get up high on those web pages on my own account, without paying anyone else to do it for me.  This hasnt been easy because according to Trip Advisor (which you don't pay for) there are 180 other Dartmoor-based B&Bs all vying for a place.

Well it's taken time, but I am getting there, and most of my bookings are now coming direct to me via this website, rather than one put together by the agents, which means that you should get a really good idea of what to expect, and we can discuss anything which is unclear before you are committed to a deposit.

I am terribly pleased and excited by all this, and boring friends and family stupid about it!

One way of ensuring you stay at the top is by continually changing and adding to the website - hence this Blog!  It certainly appears to be having some effect anyway, so I will keep on with it!

Thank you for reading thus far!

I can't think about anything else!  Every spare minute - while Beloved Daughter practises Ballade on the piano, or gorges herself on Nutella and B&B leftover bread for breakfast - there I am on my i-pad, checking my ranking on Trip Advisor and making myself frustrated and envious as I compare my marks with other establishments' 10 out of 10s!  I had no idea I was so competitive.  I think it's an addiction.

Further to my last post, I've been tweaking my website daily, so that when guests arrive they are braced to find no hanging space and a total absence of what I have rather cleverly referred to as  'slick, sleek, urban chic'.

As I said before, I want them to realize that I am the most expensive B&B on Dartmoor (I have started loosing blobs under the 'value for money section')  because of (1) the amazing location,  and (2) my brilliant service and personality. Not because I offer the most utterly incredible rooms in the universe.

I've pulled back from the 'you may find muddy pawprints and the shower's temperamental' allusions,  but on the inside pages I have broadly hinted at such things.

Anyway, the results of my obsession are now there for all to see.  I am inordinately proud, smug and boring about it.  Read on.

I had my monthly meeting with my local girlfriends (The Thunderbirds) plus partners last night, and asked them to play my new game.  "Anyone with Safari on their phones, plug in 'Luxury Dartmoor B&B' on Google Search " I ordered them.

Hah hah!!!  Up came Wydemeet!! SECOND!!!! Out of 180 B&Bs on Dartmoor!!  Page ONE!  Along with Bovey Castle and Browns Hotel!  How clever am I?  So all these hours and days spent giving myself headaches and getting irritable, immersing myself in Search Engine Optimization (SEO to geeks), has been worth it! Maybe I have a new career here!

So all is going according to plan, and my next stage will be to sack all the agents who charge me 15% commission on every booking made through them, and wait for guests to come flooding in to me direct!

Except that they're not.  Demand has fallen off a cliff. Null pointes. Zero.  I've got two more couples in October and then that's it.  Such a weird life.

Meanwhile I think I've booked the house out for a week over Christmas to a lovely sounding extended family with small children and three dogs (eek); as well as receiving my first enquiry for summer 2014.  Directly through my newly highly visible website as is now usual. Preen.

So dear Sashka is back to normal, catering just for Lady Muck, who lies in bed til 10.30am now she's got the chance to do so again.  But the difference is that I am feeling financially secure again, for the first time since the marriage bust-up four years ago. Yes - those children will benefit from an elitist, privileged, divisive education, turning them into people who haven't got a clue about the real world. Why? Why do we kill oursevles to achieve that?  God knows.

What has caught me most by surprise since I started this business, is how much our guests love our mutt, Twiglet.

They keep smuggling him into their bedrooms, where he will leave muddy pawprints on my best white Egyptian cotton bedlinen; and nearly all the comments in our visitors' book appear to be more about him than anyone else!

Beloved Daughter has started a website about him.  It is called www.gotwiglet.com; so if you have any nice pictures of him, feel free to send them there!