I am the most beautiful person in Plymouth.

                              But the ugliest in all of Turkey.



I've been surrounded for the last week by a large group of young marrieds who've left me feeling old, unfit in both senses, very single, and generally past it (although still young and stunning when compared with the aquarobics class at my Plymouth-based UnHealth Club).

And I think they may be on the warpath.  Quake in your boots, Nielson's!  Your customers appear to be displeased that you have plonked the most glorious 5* £billion palatial hotel, meant for sailing, on what on the face of it, seems to be a surfers beach.

The company's strapline is 'Relax Hard' and that's just what most of their guests do.  These people rise at dawn for water skiing (normally cancelled because of the conditions).Then it's mountain biking. Then tennis. Then weightlifting. Then fitness classes including my three perennial hates: Zumba, Aquarobics and Pilates. Followed by Swimming, and Sailing (generally cancelled). And then back to the first three. There is not an ounce of fat between them all.  Except for Michael, the surgeon, who is so enormous that he has bosoms, and snores loudly on his sunbed.  And me of course.

At the end of the week there's a competition for 'The Most Perfect Family'.  Teeth implanter and I pretended to vomit into our raki, but I was actually very jealous when my charming, bald friend (yet another surgeon, who I met when he was sitting down, and when he got up he turned out to be 5'4"), his lovely daughter and delightful wife deservedly took the honour.

I cannot imagine a more determined, intelligent, powerful force of people if this lot get the bit between their teeth.  Even if most of them aren't very interesting.

They should be rounded up to sort out Putin and prevent World War 3, once they've dealt with Nielson's.

In the meantime, my diet starts the day the children begin their Autumn term.  

Lumps on head: 3: purple splodges on knees: 5; cuts on knees: 1; broken toes: 1 (maybe);  muscles aching: all I have, plus more that I didn't know that I had; missing tarty toe rings: 1; minutes spent with children: 0; passes from anybody, even girls: 0.

"Please would you give me a boat for girls," I say coyly, my pretty sarong fluttering gaily in the gale, my bejewelled flip-flops sparkling.

If I can't win through good sailing, I can win using tactics.   The eight most macho men of the resort, kitted out in black body armour, knuckle dusters and knee pads, and I, are choosing our Lasers (very fast and tippy sailing dinghies) for the Big Race.

At last we are sailing, and it's the most cut-throat event of the week - The Regatta.

Sure enough, I manage to take possession of the smallest Laser with the titchiest sail, while the blokey blokes opt for bigger, faster, more knarly (challenging) versions.

So I have already won the Laser 247 Class without setting foot in a boat.

The red flag goes up indicating conditions are too dangerous for amateurs in single hulled dinghies.

Off 25 amateurs in single hulled dinghies charge, all attempting to start at the same time between two rather close-together buoys, and no brakes between us. "Starboard!!" I scream, and the nicest, most dashing young Dad of the resort smashes into me hard.  "I thought you were meant to be good at sailing!" I hurl at him, struggling hard not to fall overboard.  It's dinghy dodgems!

Two crashes and quite a lot of swimming later; I finally stagger in to shore - triumphant and exhausted.  Sailing is so nice when it stops.  For the past hour I appear to have been using my head to physically move the boom backwards and forwards, smashing my knees on the bottom of the boat, and all the ropes or sheets or whatever they're called are tangled up, trailing out over the stern (back).

I came 8th out of 25 in the end, being the only Lady-in-a-Laser and beaten only by Look-Alike-Wife among the few female participants.

Thank God that's sailing out of the way for at least another year.

Number of people to stand me up: 1; Wine Units: 227; Fags: 0; Barbequed Goat calories: 3,456; Balaclava calories: 0; minutes spent in riveting conversation: 240; number of giggles: 10; number of rows with Resort Owner: 1; number of passes by Turkish waiters: 0

Wow! What a night!  Just what I was hoping for!

Heads were turning knowingly over breakfast this morning, even though we had come down at different times.  This is how it went:

8.50pm: I am wandering around the bbq dining area but cant see anything because I refuse to wear glasses or contacts.  But plastic surgeon should be quite easy to spot because he is the only gentleman of mixed race in the resort.  Non.  How disappointing. No one.  I scour the bar area and finally alight on the silhouette of tooth implanter.  He looks like he is out of the movies.

9.00pm: We agree we have been stood up by plastic surgeon and enjoy our goat.  He comments with surprise: "You're funny".  I don't suppose he has ever been forced to dine with a Size 14, six foot in her heels, 54-year-old FunnyMummy before.  I giggle.  A lot.  How refreshing!

9.31pm:  Acoustioke Night in the bar

10.23pm: Plastic Surgeon turns up.  He had waited for us, given up and gone to another beach bar for supper with the flotilla-mob.

10.36pm:  Ginger Bloke with Looks-Like-Me-Wife turns up.  He tells us all how they managed to prove Shipman guilty, how he continued to kill even from the confines of prison, and why its not good or funny that Revered Son's friend is able to hack into the school software system and change all the exam grades. Ginger Bloke is one of the most interesting people I have come across for a very long time.

1.00am: we all depart happily to our separate beds, except presumably, Ginger Bloke and his Looks-Like-Me-Wife.

TripAdvisor Ranking: 8 (going down);  New Bookings: 0; Minutes spent worrying about this: 5.1/2; dates: 2

Last week we peaked in the Number 6 slot, thanks to even more, quite frankly, incredible reviews, but with my new marketing strategy - or lack of it - bookings are right down for the first half of July and then the whole house is rented out.  We are going to lose our place in the Premier League!

As Revered Son, Beloved Daughter and I set off on our mad trip to Turkey - a flight to Manchester followed by another to Dalaman ending with a four hour coach transfer to God knows where - we said goodbye to the couple who had just arrived.  They had almost immediately gone off with no research on the 1 1/2 hr hike to Princetown  wearing flipflops, and had very soon returned in some distress as the female half of said couple had been bitten by a horsefly.  Beloved daughter provided her with antihistamine and then they went off in their car.

Meanwhile lovely Sally arrived.  I found her through the Parish Magazine and I thought that she was so nice that all my guests would love her too.  So I invited her to look after the house, dog, horses and guests, in no particular order, for the week while we were away.

As we roared off in Marvin I had this terrible premonition that our new guests might not return in their car.  Thank goodness it was clearly me who had scared them off if so, rather than sweet Sally during her first hour of duties. 

7.24pm: Right now, I still have no idea whether they ever came back.

1.32pm: Had lunch with widowed plastic surgeon from Harrogate (burns not faces)

8.30pm: Turkish chef's Special Barbequed Goat Dinner, with widowed plastic surgeon from Harrogate, and ex-professional weightlifter/teeth implanter from Leicester. Must wash hair and get out best spray-on black wraparound ancient t-shirt dress, and agonising matching patent sky high killer heels. Thought: neither man is all that tall  but what the Hell.

Revered Son has lost the 'f' at the end of his name and has added a year to his age.

Its taken a couple of days, but he is already back to normal form, with his wraparound shades, baseball cap on back to front, and a trail of children wandering along behind him like the Pied Piper, only this time they are aged 16-18, and some of them are over 6' tall. I woke him up for waterskiing this morning and commented "Revered Son, you appear to have a large smear of mascara on your cheek."  He grinned proudly.  At lunchtime he was sitting next to a slim blonde young goddess draped in diaphanous pink chiffon.  His friends reassure me that he is what I would refer to as a lothario, not what they would refer to as a man-slag.

Meanwhile my new identity is pariah.  I am struggling with this as I am used to being centre of attention.

I am so interesting that a screenplay has been written about part of my life, and that's just some of it!  

Yet this week I find myself walking around grinning inanely to all, and making pleasant small talk to every tom, dick and pillock, but they're all doctors and surgeons.  Someone mentions the word NHS, if it is a word, at which point (Clarkson rant) they turn their backs on me in unison and have a competition as to who can squawk the loudest about how they're now working 210 times as hard as what they signed up to do, their pay has been cut by 7,000% and their pensions have turned into 21/2p a year.  As they buy another bottle of turkish chardonnay for three million turkish lire, and disappear off for an opi gel manipedicure, a 'Brush With Heaven' and back wax.

As I help myself to what's left of their wine.

Units of Turkish Wine: 502: fags: 111; Baclava Calorie Count: 15,432; Minutes spent with children: 0; interesting conversations: 0; number of times giggled: 0; passes from Turkish waiters: 0; passes from English Dads: 0; minutes spent sailing: 0; lengths swum: 20 (its an Olympic sized pool); wardrobe malfunctions: 1: (my swimming costume is a small size 12); clouds:0.

I love Bridget Jones.

"Might I join you?"

"No, we're having a family birthday party."

So I wander along to another table, with two couples  sitting at it, and, again, nervously, ask whether I might be able to take a seat there.

I swore never to attempt another sailing/beach resort holiday alone with my children, and here I am again, £4500 later, experiencing just the same thing.

This time its a Nielson holiday, rather than Sunsail which appears to be a bit on the ropes regarding beach holidays.

At Nielson, unlike Sunsail, they have a 'Social Table' which is the biggest one, so is usually occupied by the largest, happiest family groupings of all.  I would be fine all alone in a villa miles from anyone, but being surrounded by literally 100 functional happy families I find very difficult.

Networking is my thing, so I regularly invade various families every mealtime, but this time round so far none of them has proved very interesting.  Except for Jake, the professional weightlifter turned tooth implanter, with tinted hair, aged 51 but who looks ten years younger.

He is here with his two sons and is not interested in talking to anybody because he spends his working day making small talk to people who cant reply.

There is increaing unrest, shortly to become full rebellion I suspect, because it is a sailing holiday, but no one has as yet been out in a boat.  The quiet bay appears to have turned into a surfing beach so the black flag's up and we're not allowed to.

Both children have turned feral and have disappeared. So I have met my main objective which is for them to thrive socially in their kids clubs.  But they're not going to learn to sail.

And I'm not going to bump into a wealthy hearty six foot hunk of single posh Dad.

People that I like tend not to like Bridget Jones, Jeremy Clarkson, Britain's Got Talent, or people who drive Range Rovers. Or the Daily Mail, but that's different.

I am currently in the middle of 'Mad About The Boy', with "Is It Really Too Much To Ask?" lying by my side, missing my Range Rover and looking forward to tonight's 'Battle of the Bands" - this beach resort's version of BGT, and I am inspired!  I can write like BJ and JC! (I think..)

There are only two differences between me and Bridget Jones. 

One is that she's a Mother Who Tries Too Hard, while I favour the Benign Neglect approach.

Two is that she's made up and I exist.

There are also two differences between me and Jeremy Clarkson.  

I sometimes worry that I might have upset someone.

And I am not a bloke.

Bridget Jones is not believable because she claims to be a Sloane but says 'toilet', and also, in the book a 29 year old hunky decent bloke falls for her via twitter without even a photograph.  The chances of that are one in seventy-five trillion, as Clarkson might say.

Bridget Jones' books are structured over a blog-type thought occurring every minute or two.  Clarkson's all resound with, 'And there's the thing' every three pages, when he instructs us all on how easily he could achieve world peace.  Well I think I can probably copy both of them and publish a bestseller.

 The problem is that  if I do, the people I like won't like me.

Sometimes I look at Wydemeet's reviews on TripAdvisor, and I feel like crying.

One after the other after the other.  They are so touching. Every time some new guests arrive I get butterflies and think to myself, "They are going to be disappointed; they are going to be disappointed.  I can never live up to what it says on TripAdvisor."

So far, well. phew!  Everyone seems very happy.  More than happy.  Astonishingly happy!  I am soooo chuffed! But still constantly nervous too.

Anyhow, I've just had this brainwave.  All the internet dating sites seem so rubbish that here is another public 'portal', if that's the correct 'now' word.  So I just thought I would put in a little mention of my search for Mr Right on TripAdvisor! How cheeky is that?! I bet they censor it.  Anyway - we'll see - I've just done it this minute!

But, in the meantime, much more seriously and significantly, my lovely, lovely, lovely guests' enthusiasm has meant that, despite only being open for less than a year, and now only having two bedrooms, so by definition having limited numbers of guests who could have written anything, we have risen to the grand position of Number 8 out of 183 Dartmoor B&Bs, and we're still rising!! There isn't any real reason why we couldn't hit the Number 2 slot!  We will never beat the Apple Tree in Tavistock though.  They've got over 200 rave reviews, whereas we've only got 37.  The only negative comment they've ever had is that the car parking is a bit tight.

My latest wheeze is to make a hair appointment with the lady who runs it, and have a chinwag with her and pick her brains, while she gives me a trim.  She's also a hairdresser, apparently, and only in her thirties.  Respect! How Does She Do It?!

It must, by definition, be impossible to have an affair with a nice person.

Because if they were nice, they would say, "Yes I feel so much love for you too, but you must, must, must go back to your spouse - have counselling; do everything you can to keep the family together; do not betray your spouse nor your children. As I must not betray mine.  No, I just must not, cannot, even allow myself kiss you.  It would be wrong of me. Go now, go, and we need never speak of this again."

Having an affair means that you must both behave dishonourably and dishonestly. 

Your new love is flawed right from the beginning. And as a result, although obviously some work out OK for everybody involved, for most it would seem that the 'happy ever after' is an unlikely proposition. 

Personally I tend to go for 'dumpees' rather than 'dumpers'.  Dumpees seem to have a more steady neddy, sanguine approach to life; making the most of what is, and putting up with things, rather than expecting the grass always to be greener, and jumping.

I am probably just incredibly naive. But all this seems common sense to me.

Answers on a postcard please!