Exhibit A: The Rural Dweller

"Well, even if it's too wild and woolly for them to do their swimming, they'll still be able to see High Dartmoor at its most dramatic, and meet a genuine Moorland Hillbilly.  Just don't tell them that I put the house back on the market this morning, and am counting the days til my return to Barons Court!" I reply to Eve, my friend of thirty years, when she calls to ask whether she and two London visitors might pop by for a swim and a cup of tea.

I think, having survived up here for nearly three decades, I have now become a sort of tourist attraction. A bit like a lion in a safari park. London people can come to visit me in my isolated Dartmoor house and gain 'an experience'. They will meet someone who once graced Annabels but who now slobs around in a bobbly Tesco's jumper made of recycled bottles,  and enjoy my beautiful home in the absolute middle of nowhere - that I can't wait to escape from.

Eve met her new friends last December in Dallas, at a Tony Robbins life-coaching rally attended 10,000 people. This afternoon they are driving up from the other side of the A38, which is 900' lower, and always 3C warmer than Wydemeet. 

I am so bored and lonely that I'm more than delighted to be gawped at, as a sort of weird Neanderthal, by some anonymous navel-gazers, just for their company.

We meet in the titchy carpark of Hexworthy Church (where I played the organ at both my children's christenings), and I suggest that perhaps Huccaby Bridge might, after all, be better for wild swimming than Week Ford, because, despite the endless rain of the last few days and the River Dart being in full spate, Huccaby pool will be deep enough to swim in, whereas Week Ford is quite shallow - meanwhile the currents at both will be very strong.  Annoying, because I'd psyched myself up to actually go for a walk down to Week, now I'd got someone to go on it with, and I'm kitted out in full walking gear: a pair of wellies and my horsey-smelling trusty Jack Murphy.

Huccaby Bridge is where overweight, very white, tattooed people from Plymouth come to launch giant rubber rings, and set fire to the moor, sorry, their barbeques, on a small patch of dog-poo encrusted grass next to the road, during the summer. No sign of anyone there now!

My jaw falls to the ground. Eve and friends have already thrown off their kit, and are in the swirling brown swollen waves of the best fishing pool of the River Dart, before you can say Hound of the Baskervilles!  

"Come back! Don't go too far downstream - the current's strong!" I yell at them. I'm still in full jumper, gilet and waterproof, helpless on the bank, battered by drizzle and wind. You wouldn't get me in that river in a year of Sundays.

I can't believe what I'm seeing. They swim (very strongly) for a good 15 minutes, totally unfazed by the currents, or the sub-zero temperatures, until I remember to let them know that I have a jacuzzi waiting for them at home,  and tea and coffee cake to follow in my centrally heated kitchen. And I am so completely modern that I can even lend them a dryrobe!

They jump back into the car in their wet costumes and we whisk them back to my (very) hot and bubbly huge blue plastic tub. 

Over tea I discover that one of the guests had spent her teens at the Lyme Regis Sailing Club, as I did.  She and her partner keep swimming-fit from their daily dips in the Hampstead ponds.  Both are doing very well in the highly competitive film world - one of their short films is due to be shown on Comic Relief tonight! 

I am deeply impressed by their energy, courage, intelligence, friendliness and general charisma, and am actually dead chuffed to have become Exhibit A on their Devon tour! And delighted that I could provide them both with such an enjoyable and memorable afternoon.

And Tony Robbins sounds fascinating. I must sign up for his next Rally!