London-born novelist Arabella Edge, 45, and her husband Nick Gaze, jeweller and sculptor, run a guest house in the remote Antipodean island of Tasmania, called Bicheno Hideaway. They look after guests plus a whole menagerie of semi-wild animals, while Arabella cooks up her third novel.

Monday

Yesterday, the local pharmacist and his wife picked up a journeyman hitchhiking in Coles Bay. An English chap wearing a black bowler hat, waistcoat and black jacket and bearing a kind of carved wooden staff. He's a carpenter and the journeyman part of it is that he travels the world for three years and a day living off his trade – the rules of the guild, which originated some 500 years ago in Germany. He's very slight and rather good looking in an elvin sort of way. So now he is in our caravan and will be making benches and various rustic seats to go on the foreshore track.

Initially I was horrified, at the height of the season. He and Nick have bonded hugely yet I managed to get him watering for two hours yesterday. This is what we do every morning: strip beds, take linen to laundry, pick linen up and water, using grey water from the showers. Despite his obvious talent as a cabinet maker he should be no exception.

 Last night we took him out to dinner with our friend Bertrand who runs the local motor bike rides (taught Mel Gibson how to ride and was in all the Mad Max films) and Jan who owns the Katmandu stores and has recently rescued 100 battery hens. An eclectic crowd.

It’s very hot here and humid and no rain. Heard that (second novel) The Raft has been sold in Israel and will be translated into Hebrew.

Wednesday

Journeyman making huge bench, rather like a chaise longue for the foreshore land. He's happy here and intends to work on Nick's boat.

It's incredibly hot here and now that JM is doing carpentry, it's back to grey watering which I first called poo water. But now I'm used to it and squirt the hose merrily away to reach every plant. The other day the extension came off and I was drenched. That's when you start to think about other people's shower habits.

Glad to have any water at all, though, after forest fires swept all around us in December.

When I returned from my London trip, I spent the first day back raking and raking as bushfires screamed towards us. Thinking what the hell am I doing here and Nick saying things like ‘We'll lose Hideaway’ but we'll stay and defend the house.  When the firefront comes over you just stay in the house. Me thinking how to round up the bantams, ducks, tame wallabies and stick them in the bath with the dog or something. Beam me back to London! One set of guests cancelled and when this massive four wheel drive came through the gate I rushed up and said: ‘Thank God you're here, we're so relieved,’ assuming they were the fire fighters informing us if we could stay and defend. No twas the Pickup family who had decided to brave the weather so to speak. Fortunately had chalet ready.

Tomorrow I am off to Hobart for two weeks research on the third novel, the last in a trilogy of works inspired by shipwrecks and the powerful and unexpected narratives that these catatrophes set in motion.

(Having sited second novel in France) I am returning to Australian shores with a meditation on the former governor of Tasmania Sir John Franklin, who was appointed by the British Admiralty to head the polar expedition to the North West Passage.

After making contact with a whaling vessel off the coast of Greenland, Franklin’s men and the two ships under his command sailed north and were never seen again.

I am at an exciting point of research where, through journals and historical documents I am trying to enter the mindsets and mores of these Victorian explorers. It will be heavenly, having two weeks to delve into the subject, without wallabies, bantams or bathwater to worry about.

Love Arab.

To contact Arabella Edge , please click here
www.bichenohideaway.com