"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.

Eleven year old Douglas's parents, who live in France, arrive to find all the grown ups standing on the bar, enthusiastically 'moving like Jagger' in the routine they put together last night over a few bottles of Prosecco, while the rest of us were engaged on a Gelatti hunt with 32 children, two of whom are accutely allergic to nuts.

Soon Douglas's big brother joins him on the floor, to demonstrate dancing gangnam style, while ten year old Wilbur does an Irish jig to 'I am Happy".  And we all are. This eclectic mix of adults and kiddies have bonded so well that no one cares who they find themselves sitting next to over the unremitting daily supper of rock-hard white rolls, kos lettuce, radiccio, olives, and tinned chopped carrots.

Prior to supper, evenings comprise two lines of adults and children sitting on their bums, back to the wall, legs in everybody's way, in the hotel passage, gaming, running their businesses, gambling, or checking out the talent on Times Encounters, as the free wifi doesn't work anywhere else.

Days involve forty-one Brits racing around the mountains on skis, from the first chair-lift up, to the last chair-lift down.  It is extraordinary that every single child appears to be mad about skiing, however much crying takes place in between runs. Meanwhile the adults oversee the action from the centrally located mountain cafe, tucking into something called Bombardino - an orange kind of advocat that you mix with coffee and cream - discussing children and parenting.  'Benevolent Neglect' appears to be our most favoured approach.

The sun is hot, the sky is blue, the snow is perfect, the runs are virgin, there's no one else here.  The mountain is our very own.

On the last day we are all such experts that we ski to France.  Here we find noise.  Hundreds of English people clogging up the chairlifts, all colour coordinated.  Some wear orange caps, lots of tiddlies are crying, some young teenagers sport purple sweatshirts, others have sky blue ski jackets, all with the names of their schools emblazoned on the back. School ski trips have clearly become big business.  The Bombardinos cost nearly double over here.  We are glad to get back to the peace of  Italy, where even the first-timer seven year-old skiers are now leaving me behind, as they ski their bittersweet last run, after a week of universal hilarity and joy.

"My ski gloves are older than Malcolm," I declare.  

Malcolm is one of the teachers running the school ski trip. He is twenty-eight. My gloves are twenty-nine and still white(ish).  They still work too.

The school ski trip comprises 32 children and nine adults.  I have been clear throughout the planning of it, that I am not here to look after children, and all promises have been kept to, rigorously.  I have nothing to do but be told when and where to go.  No decisions to make. No responsibility. I don't care what the weather's like, what the hotel's like, what the skiing's like.  It is just heaven being able to relax for a week.  Even though it feels odd that there's been no break between attending the school music competition, swimming at the unhealthyclub, finding a home for Twiglet, coach, plane, coach, hotel, ski-hire place and revolting supper in the very basic hotel's very basic dining room somewhere in Italy, surrounded by eight year olds who've also been up and at it for 48 hours. I've rarely been happier.