Vicarious Love

"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.