From London journalist to owner of a historic, ramshackle Tasmanian cottage and provider of local produce, this is one woman's beautiful, inspiring story of having the courage to step into the unknown and change her life Looking back over seven summers, I know that who I am is where I am. It might not be the secret to life, but it is the secret to this life . . . I'll tell you how that came to be and that will be the story of The Nuns' House. Hilary Burden was a busy high-flying, globe-trotting magazine journalist based in London, who'd think of nothing of flying to New York for a weekend, interviewing movie stars in luxury hotels, or jetting off to Italy on assignment to hunt truffles with Curtis Stone. But something was missing and she didn't know quite what it was. Yearning for a life lived on her own terms, Hilary returned to her hometown in Tasmania. She found a ramshackle old house with a sprawling, neglected garden—The Nuns' House—and gave herself the time and space to begin this new sort of life. She didn't have a plan, but things just somehow worked. Now, seven summers later, she has a home, a garden, a lover, two alpacas (named Jack and Kerouac), two chooks (called Marilyn and Monroe), a purpose, and a passion. She met the love of her life when she stopped to ask him directions, and she now runs a successful business with him, sourcing local growers and supplying fresh fruit and vegetable boxes to growing numbers. She loves Tasmania—its landscape, people, and produce; and living honestly and simply; and her passion comes through vividly and abundantly in her writing. Hilary Burden is a journalist who has worked with BBC,  Conde Nast , Cosmo ,  Elle , Grazia , and the Sunday Times . Seven years ago, she sold her London flat and moved to Karoola in the northeast of Tamania, where she now lives on roughly two acres. A Story of Seven Summers Life in the Nuns' House By Hilary Burden Allen & Unwin Copyright © 2012 Hilary Burden All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-74237-684-4 CHAPTER 1 London, 2004 I used to live in a one-bedroom, third-floor Edwardian mansion flat overlooking a bridge on the River Thames. In winter, I could see as far up the river as Craven Cottage, Fulham Football Club's ground, and as far downriver as the spire of St Nicholas Parish Church, Chiswick. In summer, my view was of the leafy London plane trees whose roots lay somewhere under the concrete footpath. Sometimes you could hear the wood pigeons cooing, but mostly the sounds were of an endless drum of traffic from the road below. I don't remember ever seeing the stars in four years, but I loved to sit on the bench on Hammersmith Bridge at sunset or moonrise with a bottle of sparkling wine. It was a simple wooden bench made for any bottom that cared to sit there: a bench with no name. I was born in Britain, brought up in Tasmania, and worked overseas for most of my life, while still calling Tasmania 'home'. I lived away — in Sydney, Tokyo and London — for over twenty years. 'Have you ever worked abroad?' was the question I wanted to answer with the YES of experience. So work became a home that was on the move and going places, a job with a salary and a wardrobe full of jackets. And my childhood left behind. Tasmania was where I learned how to shoot, go four-wheel-driving, scuba dive, line-fish for flathead, cook abalone and crayfish, steer a motorboat, sail a yacht, and hang-glide — mostly before I was old enough to vote. I used few of these skills in England. Maybe that's why I always thought something was missing. While dating the exciting kind of men you meet in big cities (bankers, lawyers, writers and politicos), I fantasised about a partner who could also throw a dog on the back of a ute. Instead, the glossy magazine world in which I was absorbed took me to exciting places: a café opening in Venice, the launch of a new Chanel nail polish in Paris. I went from jet-boat racing at the Cannes Film Festival to canoeing down the Zambezi, and interviewed everyone from Kylie Minogue (recording her first single for Stock Aitken Waterman in a Bermondsey studio) to Kevin Kline on a plump sofa at the Mayfair Hotel and Elle Macpherson in a chic pied-à-terre in Paris. I was like a Pollyanna living a lily-pad existence. For many years I thrived on these skin-deep moments, but eventually my spirit wore thin and I could not throw off the feeling that my life was false. I started searching for something I could not define, some version of the road less travelled, and found my sense of direction took me into churches. For a while, All Souls Church, Langham Place, next to the BBC's headquarters in Broadcasting House, was convenient to Great Portland Street where I worked. In my lunch hour I'd pop in to breathe a different air that comes with high ceilings and wide rooms. When Princess Diana died I recall an air of sadness so poignant I stood outside the nearest church to contemplate the space from a distance. Winchester Cathe