God I'm thick.  Why ever didn't I think of this before?! 

The reason why I can now offer riding holidays is because, for the first time ever, I am lucky enough to have two mares who are perfect for almost anyone to ride.

But my latest brainwave is …  wait for it.... hunting breaks! Trail hunting or 'Exempt' hunting  - which is what they legally do these days, after foxhunting was banned with the Hunting Act in 2004.  Everyone dresses up just the same, and you still have a pack of hounds, but they follow several trails which have been set up by humans earlier, going up hill and down dale, testing the cleverness of the hounds (and ability of the riders!), and enough for a day's hunting to last til dusk.

Just think - I could have been doing this all the time, because there's a place up the road which provides the most fantastic hunter hirelings! As with my Riding Holidays, guests will have exclusive use of Wydemeet and I'll cook them wonderful four course dinners.  But after breakfast they'll drive to the best nearby hunt meet, and join up with their hireling there. 

Having researched the idea, extraordinarily enough it appears that there's only one other place in the whole of the UK that does it. And their prices start at £2000 for two nights' accommodation with one day's hunting; rising to.... can you believe it.... £8000(!!!!!) for a week including five days' hunting. Not even with a posh hunt like the Beaufort!

Hunting breaks are more plentiful and cheaper in Southern Ireland, but you have to be a complete maniac to hunt there - I would pay not to!

I've put all the info together on a new website called www.huntingbreaks.co.uk . Three days, two nights, a dinner and a day's hunting will be £799pp based on two sharing; and six days, five nights, two dinners and four day's hunting from £2500pp.

Do come ! At Wydemeet you will be thoroughly immersed in a truly authentic Dartmoor hunting scene!

It only crossed my mind a couple of days ago.  I'm now offering riding holidays on Dartmoor! Why haven't I been for ages?! It's something that I so love, that I can share!  So I've just finished putting together a website: www.ridingondartmoor.co.uk; and now I've got to get the news out there, and find my horsey guests!

My plan is to devote myself entirely to my esteemed visitors, so I'll close out one of the rooms if there are only one or two of them.  Because I want to offer them the full monty - to prepare a candle-lit dinner in the dining room  for two out of three nights, while my friend Julie escorts them to lunch in one of our local pubs, riding out and back different ways across the moor.  A seriously luxurious three night horsey-break for £799pp if there are two or more guests; or with a £150 supplement if there's only one person.  In which case I can spend the whole time looking after him or her, and take them out myself on one of my two beloved mares.  So I won't have time or energy left to look after other guests properly while they're here.

How exciting! I wonder whether anyone will want to come? I'm more expensive than a couple of alternative horsey holiday places on the moor, but cheaper than another.  And nobody else rides direct into the wilderness from their garden gate! Watch this space!!

What a funny season we're having this year.  Wydemeet B&B has been up and running for six years now, and I thought everything had become fairly predictable.

But no! My bookings seemed to be way down on all previous years, for no tangible reason  - yet in the end we have ended up as busy as ever - this year filling up with 'last-minuters'. Probably Brexit's fault, like everything else.

This means we have to be on our toes, to ensure rooms are ready, and everything required for our super-duper breakfasts is available and fresh in the fridge; emails and telephone messages constantly checked.

Our guests seem to be ever nicer if that were possible, and our reviews even more flattering - a total delight to read.  Running Wydemeet B&B loses none of its pleasure as the years roll by.

To ensure that it stays such fun, I'm clear that breakfast is now served anytime after 9am.  This way, looking after my guests never becomes a chore or feels like work; instead you'll be greeted with a smile and (probably too much) chat - it's like friends coming to visit for a permanent house party!

The only downside is this hideous rain - surely it must stop soon! I am busy researching jolly things to do on Dartmoor in the rain.  Top of the list is a visit to Princetown Prison's museum.  As recommended by ex-Radio 2's DJ, Simon Mayo, it's been run by the same enthusiast for years, and it's opening times tend to be a bit erratic. There's also the Dartmoor Visitors' Centre in Princetown, the almost-empty Arts & Crafts building, funded my some lunatic EU scheme, and the cosy, welcoming Plume of Feathers pub.

I love Princetown - it's the highest town in England, and has a foggy, damp, cold, windy, grey climate all of its own. Mostly built from granite, the huge, imposing, menacing prison, which houses 600 Grade C male prisoners, glows in an orange haze at dusk, looming and silent; half the shops and cafes are boarded up, including a permanently closed Arctic explorer's display; and an aura of misery and poverty pervades the wide, empty streets.  It's a memorable and fascinating place to visit, a centre for keen walkers.  You can hike to the most remote accommodation of all on the moor: Whiteworks, which overlooks the gloopy dangerous stretches of Fox Tor Mire (Grimpen Mire in 'Hound of the Baskervilles' - where someone drowns in it). Or cross the moor via the banks of the bottomless Crazy Well Pool to beautiful Burrator Reservoir.  Or head in the Tavistock direction along an easy-walking stretch of disused railway.

All this providing it's not pouring horizontal cats and dogs of course!

All publicity is good publicity.  Well, as an ex-professional PR person I would disagree.  However, I am fascinated and quite pleased to discover that after all the media's constant carping about Airbnb, the number of guests I have booking through them this season is probably double what I'm used to!

I may get sued for saying it, but I think Airbnb makes even more commission out of every booking than the more established big boy - Booking.com.  Booking.com charges me 15% + VAT commission for every night of every booking, yet they've never even checked me out! Imagine if you booked Hexworthy for a year - Booking.com would take £7,665 for just sitting on their bums. Also what annoys me about them is that they don't allow the accommodation provider to write his or her own description of the property.  In Wydemeet's case this means too many guests coming through Booking.com seem to expect a conveniently placed central point from which to explore the South West, wide, brightly-lit thoroughfares, sign-posted gravel paths, bridges over bogs, and constant sunshine.

I've actually reduced my Airbnb prices to make sure that you will pay the same in the end.  But there's something much nicer about the whole Airbnb approach.  It's quirky and individual, user-friendly, and the best thing of all is what lovely guests they send me - I don't think I've ever had a dud!

But obviously my favourite of all is you - because you're here reading this, which means you're going to book direct through this website (I hope!)  I can't wait for you to come!

And so they go on - my lessons in managing the sew-shall meedja.

"If you google "Best Luxury B&B Dartmoor", Wydemeet always comes up first!" I show off to anybody who will listen. 

Ahem.  Apparently not.  At a Mum's lunch last week, Meg, who manages 72 websites, so knows her stuff despite being nearly as old as me, told me that it's just the cookies or spiders or something, which are so used to me looking myself up that they've positioned Wydemeet top of my search engines, but not necessarily those of other people.

The blog is the answer to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), she said, so here I am, back again with more drivel.

I also have a headache from trying to relearn Facebook and Tweeting, and get going on WordPress blogging, because it's time to relaunch myself as an aspiring successful author.

I have been writing to all the agents I can find who might be relevant to getting my Surviving Solo trilogy of books: 'Darebnb'; 'Back On the Shelf'; and 'Moving On by Staying Still' published. One of them has taken the trouble to reply, saying I must get a following on a Blog, and 21 reviews on Amazon, before even trying to flog a book. Agh!

Next week I have been invited to speak at a 'Meet the Author' evening of the Exeter Pi Society's Book Group, so it would appear to be the time to consolidate all my efforts around this event.  The whole thing is doing my head in, but I am a Virgo (it's my 59th birthday on Saturday!), so I will persevere until it's done.

My refurb appears to have hit the spot.

​Everybody seems to be very happy with what I've done, and we can now boast over 100x five blobs on TripAdvisor!  The only four blobber we've had in the last three years came from a wonderful pair who suffered a powercut during their stay.

This meant the electric gate wouldn't open, so they couldn't drive to their riding lesson;  their large Rhodesian Ridgeback had to be hurled over it in order to be taken for a walk; and worst of all, the dreaded macerator stopped working so the loo overflowed onto the new carpet, down the electric light socket and into the hall below.  They were generous to give us four blobs, and said it was all so much fun that they can't wait to return!

The purpose of this blog, though, is entirely selfish.

 I wanted to let you know that I have finally completed my 'Surviving Solo' trilogy of books.  They are called 'Dare B&B'; 'Back on the Shelf': and 'Moving On By Staying Still';  all available via Amazon. My goal for 2018 is to turn them into best sellers! Watch this space!

I have just spent a fortune on refurbishing my two B&B rooms: Hexworthy and Dartmeet.

I took the plunge when I made the decision to take the house off the market, and now they are going to have to take me out in a box!

There have been a lot changes over the two years since I first put Wydemeet up for sale. The pub at the end of the road, The Forest Inn, has been bought and re-opened by friends, serving the best food on Dartmoor at mad prices! It's like an extended sitting room for us!  It has re-vitalised the community of Hexworthy, and now my two teenage children have also decided they want to stay in the house where they were born.

So I enlisted the help of two interior designers from Ashburton, who said, "De-clutter, de-clutter and de-clutter" and we have used the most expensive paint imaginable from Little Greene, in shades of 'Leather' and 'Stock', and re-decorated.

I have also bought a six foot mahogany bed complete with 3000 pocket sprung mattress for Hexworthy, and moved the top-of-the-range Vispring Herald Superking Zip-and-Link into Dartmeet, to replace the original very comfortable (but very old) twins.

The water colours have been replaced with oils, I've bought some beautiful chairs and a lovely Edwardian inlaid mahogany wardrobe for Hexworthy, and a Victorian one in satin wood for Dartmeet, and I've provided new luxury duvets, pillows, mattress toppers and bathrobes. Sooooo comfortable, I keep slipping into my B&B bedrooms myself, whenever I get the chance!

I believe that blogs assist with 'Search Engine Optimisation' - ie keeping this website ahead of the pack when you're googling for accommodation on Dartmoor.

I've felt I must go incognito with my current blog as some of it's a bit private, and I like to be able to edit it to make it better, and to get rid of typo's in my own time; so really the only point of putting anything here now is for the various words to get picked up by Google's 'spyders'.  So, at the risk of boring you senseless, here they are: Dartmoor B&B; Dartmoor Bed and Breakfast; Accommodation on Dartmoor; Best Dartmoor B&Bs; Luxury Dartmoor Accommodation, etc etc  I'll think of some more in due course!  Many thanks for your patience!  Let's hope it works!

Our luxury Dartmoor B&B is flying along!  You will have to book quickly if you'd like to stay here this summer!

I have had a whole series of the nicest guests possibly imaginable, who have all turned into friends.  I am so enjoying returning to B&B full-on.

Checking out our reviews on TripAdvisor is enough to bring a lump to the throat.

One of my most recent guests described Wydemeet as a 'boutique hotel in central Dartmoor'.  I am particularly chuffed by this, as I never really thought that what we offer quite merited such a recognition of chic-ness.

Come and see for yourself whether you agree with her!

Wydemeet, Central Dartmoor Bed and Breakfast, has never looked so good!  Probably since it was first built, 100 years ago!

We've had a year of some potential purchasers prevaricating over whether they would buy my beloved home, only for them to pull out five days prior to an extended exchange date last February.

So it's been a deep breath, pulling up of sleeves, a little chat with the bank manager (Mum) and we've put right every one of the 100s of things they moaned on about, and more!  We will now be operating as a full on B&B, for the forseeable future, so this has been our chance to bite the bullet and refurbish everything.

This means - hello electric gate, smart new drive, lots of pots of pansies, and new garden chairs and sun loungers.  Come and immerse yourself in the new, smart Wydemeet.  Only my erstwhile 'lawn' - wrecked during the winter by escaped Dartmoor ponies - remains a work in progress!