Pandora (13) is giggling on the computer next to me, enjoying her first Facebook flirtation with a boy called Ted (12). Ted says he loves her.

It's my first visit to what's laughingly called my 'health club' for a month.  It's neither healthy (we've just shared a chocolate brownie) nor a club (a small glass of wine costs a fiver and members dont get to share out the profits - those all go to that bloke with the woolly jumpers and the beard, who, unsurprisingly, laughs a lot).

2014 is about to begin. B&B proper. 

Since the lovely, funny, outward bound guys, I've had a family of rock climbers and three days later let out the house for Christmas week.

I mind very much that people are happy in my home.  I waited for the family's arrival with bated breath, having spent the previous night away in another B&B to ensure I didnt crease anything or leave any drips on the basins of my immaculate home.  

My guests turned out to be the perfect 'fit'.  Three siblings, their families, and a grandparent.  Just like our own family Christmas of 2012.  I was quite emotional about it.  "The house is made for you," I said.  "I am so very happy that it is you."

I will never know how much I should have enjoyed eight nights of me-time.  I spent most of it talking, and the rest of it trying to get my voice back. Nothing is ever quite as much fun as it should be, when you only feel 90%.

I  have just said goodbye to my latest guests.  They have been a complete larf and generally brilliant, and I am going to miss them. I am smiling warmly to myself now, just thinking about how funny they were!

In fact this weekend is going to be my first weekend without guests since July! Time for a lie-in! Except we get those anyway sometimes.  Last weekend I served 'my doctor' breakfast at 5pm! It suited us both very well.

I have been amazed at guests' reactions when I ask them what time they'd like breakfast in the morning.  They nearly always say, "When would suit you?"  I mean WHAT???!!! I am here to serve! That is my job! Breakfast, anywhere, any place, any time, whatever you can think of, except kedgeree because it makes the whole place smell.

Sometimes I almost have to force guests to say what will suit them, everybody is so astonishingly nice and obliging.  Inside my head I am often trying to convey what I really want to say by telepathy.  I concentrate hard, focussing on their brain, saying "Say 10 o'clock, say 10 o'clock!!" and usually they pause before replying with "Would 8.30am be too late?"

Well now I am sad that my latest couple have left because I have had to go around the house turning off all the radiators and the wall lights (which I only use on special occasions because they are very expensive on bulbs), and I wont have any more fresh flowers now until my next guests arrive.  Horrid cheap croissants, nasty spreadable lurpac, grotty bland orange juice and plastic bread for the next four days.

Before I started the B&B business my house was becoming a tatty old mess, to such an extent I felt like moving rather than attempting to get it all together.  The very idea of porcelain tea cups, scatter cushions and throws in each bedroom did my head in.  Getting everything immaculate with not a single 'curly' anywhere to be seen (a disgusting word I have learned through my recent addiction to 'Four In a Bed')  no flaking paint, and no dust even on top of a 7' wardrobe, filled me with utter horror and dread.

But nine months later, I wander around my establishment with its cut grass, swept gutters, filled tubs, clean patio's and (almost) everything working, including the mended glass pane in the dining room window that had clearly once had a bullet shot through it.  I'm feeling good.

And also cold, until my next guests arrive and I have an excuse to heat the whole house at 20C all over again.  Roll on Monday!!

Oooeerrr...

Today I managed to transfer the 50 blogs I've written over the past year onto this site.  

I'm wondering whether I'm being completely stupid.

These blogs weren't really intended for public scrutiny.They were an experiment for me to find my voice, my muse, to see if I could write, because so many of my friends told me I had to, and I thought it might somehow result in a few extra pennies one day.  Now I'm not so sure.

How many of you am I going to offend, frighten, or generally put off coming to my lovely B&B, once you've had a look at my ramblings?

I'm also thinking of launching my new B&B business to my 1,882 'contacts' - ie everyone I have ever emailed over the past decade, including people I really hate and/or have sued - telling them all how fantastic my B&B is, and imploring them to come to stay.

Even though I've got enough 'footfall' already.  

Is this just my loathing of wasted resources gone mad?

Time will tell.. watch this space if you haven't fallen asleep already!

I have just bought Beloved Daughter a flute which cost more than my car.  It's solid silver, unlike my car which is solid Ford Focus.

I bought it mostly because it was a quarter of the price that I was expecting.  Her teacher had told me that a silver one, called a straight, open-holed Yamaha 481 or something, which professionals use, would be around £4000. So when I saw this one advertised for £1100 on GumTree I just ordered it then and there.

I'm wondering whether GumTree is the next eBay. You can advertise on there for nothing.

But I think, despite its best efforts, it might be a portal for prostitution.

Two people rang up in one morning, directly after I'd posted an ad on it for Esteemed Partner's massage business.  Sashka answered the phone, and not being briefed said "No, this is not a massage parlour, it's a bed and breakfast business".

Aaggh! So that's two even fewer customers for Esteemed Partner then.  I returned the next call from a chap called 'Dave' asking for 'Mary'.  Well honestly - there's a pic of a bloke massaging someone who's fully dressed in the ad; and the copy is all about long term pain relief with particular reference to backs and trigger points.  Dave never called back. 

My final enquiry came from someone trying to get me to pyramid sell health food products.

I might go back to eBay.

And now, to make things fair, I suppose I'll have to buy Revered Son a new sax. No doubt this will be made from solid gold, and will cost more than my house.

This Christmas I shall be all by myself in the cheapest B&B on Dartmoor, while my two children wake up to their stockings with their father in his new pad in Parsons Green, and go on to join their cousins in Sussex for a jolly family Christmas Day.

We originally bought Wydemeet as a 'Christmas Home', which it is perfect for, and swore to spend every Christmas in it, for ever.  And now I have rented it out for another family to enjoy.

Hurrah! I am free! I have been struggling to prepare a Christmas meal in a 2-ovened Aga for sixteen years now, without a break. I've missed the telly!  Ive missed the riding!  I've been stressing for weeks in advance...

So I've organised this arrangement on purpose, and I just can't wait for the 'me time' to begin.  I shall be on that horse, jacuzzi-ing at my health club, coming back from parties (if I get asked to any) to a lovely, warm, friendly, cosy house, and having breakfast prepared for me every day.

And on the day itself, lovely Esteemed Partner is preparing Christmas Dinner for me, his wife, their daughter, my Mum, his wife's sister, and any other waifs and strays who knock on his door, I assume.  How modern!

So I think it's going to be really, really fun!  (Although a little part of me thinks I'd like my children back next year.)

Dear old blog.

I've been missing you.

I've broken, or cracked, or bruised some ribs.  Whatever - the end result is that I can hardly get out of bed, and have to come up with clever ways of rolling onto the floor in order to get to the loo.  Six weeks they say it will take to get better.  

Well call that three.  Or two.  I am a single mother with children to organise, a business to run, and horses to exercise.  I cant afford to be out for one day, let alone 42.

So this morning, after ten days in bed, I have hauled myself upstairs and onto my computer, to tell you how I've been spending my time.  

Shopping.  

I've lost count of how many pairs of jodphurs and electric blankets I've bought.  So far I've got four pairs of jods, and Freya's got three, and four electric blankets have been delivered. Also a set of tea, coffee and sugar tins in cream, and a Rock Box.

I have also been learning things.  I now know more about showers than anyone in existence, and we've got the wrong one.  That's why it works all funny.  So I've bought a new second-hand twin-ended pump and thermostatic head to replace it.

Satellite broadband! It's coming on Saturday!  This will add years to my life!  It's only £500 to install with a hideous white satellite dish, and £28pm thereafter for speeds of 20mb/s.  That's 153 times faster that what I have now!

Android mobiles! Yeah! You can use your mobile without a phone signal via wifi! I've bought two by mistake. One will have to go to Beloved Daughter for Christmas. 

Renewable Energy Sources! A windmill, heat exchanger, bio-mass boiler, solar panels? Or the whole lot?! A company is calling me tomorrow to discuss it all.

I am truly a woman of the modern world.

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!