In January 2005 I purchased a rambling old Victorian house in Cornelian Bay in Tasmania, an island just off the southern tip of mainland Australia, right at the edge of the world, and I moved down during April.

I had wanted to live in Tasmania for many, many years. I have good friends down here, and I loved the island, its other-worldly feel, its landscape and its climate. I have always wanted to live with the water before me and the mountains behind me, I wanted a house with space for a garden, I needed more room for my books ... and all that I have achieved that at Nonsuch. There is nothing better than fetching in the paper from the frost-crunched lawn of Nonsuch and seeing Mount Wellington rising behind me, bathed in the rust red light of dawn, and smothered in ice.

So I bought Nonsuch. I'd been looking for a property for months, and Nonsuch was quite literally the last property on my list. I'd been flying down to Tasmania each week to house hunt, and was getting desperate. My own house in Bendigo was on the market, and it looked like I might not find anywhere suitable (and affordable!) in Tasmania. I'd overlooked Nonsuch because it looked to be in a state of some disrepair (appearances were not deceiving!) and because I'd thought it was already under contract (it was). But the estate agent persuaded me the vendors might still consider another offer and, desperate, I agreed to look at the house. My friend and I arrived at 1.30 p.m. one Thursday afternoon. Only the fact that the estate agent knew I was there meant we didn't instantly drive away. The roof was rusted away and panels of the tin were lifting off in the breeze. The outside of the house hadn't been painted in years and had deteriorated badly. The beautiful wrap-around (and massive) verandah listed charmingly to one side and you had to be careful where you put your feet in case you went through the floor. The house had once been stunning, but now ... oh, now ... But we were there, and we couldn't afford to alienate the estate agent (who knew what one of her houses I'd need to be viewing the next month?), and so we made our careful way across the verandah and waited by the front door. It opened, we stepped inside, and I (as my friend) was lost. The house was exquisite. In part this was its space, its massive entrance hallway, the front rooms with their bay windows, the living room with its huge fireplace and intricate pressed tin ceiling, the period touches, the brass work, but mostly it was the feel of the house. Nonsuch exudes serenity. It exists in a most extraordinary island of peace that touches everyone who enters it. "There is only one thing I need to know," I said to the estate agent before I'd taken more than five steps inside, "and that is ... what is it going to take for me to get this house?"

The estate agent was showing other people through the house that day, and we all ended up putting in silent bids on the house, and fortunately I won through. It took some doing, but I bought Nonsuch (the house has only been sold twice in the past 130 years). So now I am engaged in the long journey to put the house, and its gardens, back together again - I had a building inspection done before signing off on the contract and while the house looks awful it was still structurally sound. The roof will be done shortly. I have a shipwright to work on the verandah. Then the painters will be around. (Update early 2006: currently the verandah has been rebuilt, the roof has been re-roofed, the painters are about to start on the outside of the house, and the landscapers are at work in the garden and wondering what to do about the buried air raid shelter we've only just found out exists ... I am seventh heaven planning out the garden.) Meanwhile I sit inside and look at the wonderful views, decide which one of the eight open fireplaces I might like to light (the house actually does also have central heating!), and whether I really want to open the hobbit door in the servants' back hallway to see what is behind it (the 'hobbit's door' is a door set eight feet up into the servants' hall walls - God knows where it leads ... with my vertigo I'm not about to climb up and have a look), and plan my garden. You can follow my Nonsuch gardening adventures at the Nonsuch web site. I never thought I'd find a house to rival Ashcotte, the lovely Victorian house I left behind in Bendigo, but somehow I've managed it.