Some time ago I received a letter addressed simply to ‘Islandmore, Ireland', which began with the words, ‘Hello Post Officer!’

It had taken several weeks to get here — understandable, given that the postman draws the line at rowing the length of Ringhaddy Sound with the mail — and was from a girl called Monika Veithoefer in Leonhardsbuch, Germany.

Evidently she has a passion for islands and collects island postmarks from around the world.

She enclosed a five euro note and a self-addressed envelope which she very much hoped could be returned bearing the postmark ‘Islandmore’.

In my reply, I explained that this particular island has no post office and no particular need for one, as apart from myself, my wife Lynn and our two dogs, there are no inhabitants.

I enclosed the five euro and a limited edition Royal Mail stamp from 2005 with a photograph of ‘Islandmore' (which is not in fact Islandmore, but captures the flavour of Strangford Lough nevertheless) and asked at the Post Office in Balloo if there was something local with which they could stamp the envelope.

The only thing available was a well-worn counter stamp which seemed to say ‘Killinchy Post Office'; and an inkpad which was so dry that we ended up with a kind of collage in a dozen shades of grey from near-invisible to just barely legible — if you looked hard enough.

Not what Fraulein Veithoefer was looking for perhaps, but certainly unique, and hopefully worthy of a place in her collection, however off-target.

My point is that, in the words of a more recent email correspondent, “there is an island fantasy in all of us”. Quitting the rat race may be aspirational, but to many of us, getting in a small boat to do so is positively romantic. When friends come to stay for the first time, particularly with children, we always walk to the top of Eagle Hill, behind the cabin, from where a 360° view of the island's convoluted shoreline provides proof that there really is no way on or off, except by boat. How exciting is that for a 10-year-old?

I was 12 when I first saw The Blue Cabin, and the feeling of wonder and promise was so potent I can call it up even today. It was the summer of 1970. My father had arranged with Bob Scott, local boatman and shipwright, to ferry the family across in his converted lifeboat Horsa, with our rowing boat tied astern.

The jetty had battens nailed crosswise at intervals, an arrangement which in terms of grip was useless for shoes but ideal for seaweed, which hung from the walkway in luxuriant drapes. The grass between the sea wall and cabin was weedy and long, enclosed by a sagging sheep-wire fence, approximate at best and only approximately serving to confine the sheep to the rest of the island’s 120 acres, over which they roamed at will.

The contrast between the wilderness immediately around the cabin, and the kind of crew-cut everywhere else which only sheep or goats can achieve, is one of my earliest impressions of Islandmore. That, and the smell of the cabin itself, which I have tried to describe elsewhere without much success. Like new-mown hay, or a horse barn in the high desert, it defies description. It’s the smell of cabin.

Through the tumultuous early 1970s, when my father was under so much pressure in his political life, he made it an unconditional rule that family life should continue as normal — and the Blue Cabin, during short summer visits which were all too often cut shorter still by events on the mainland, assumed great importance.

Despite the fact that every time we crossed to the island, the police crossed with us and the two-way radio in the guard hut among the trees became a kind of relay station for messages and summonses and every kind of unwelcome intrusion, my strongest memories are of family trips in small boats; of my parents together on the cabin’s timber deck; of daily plans, shared adventures and laughter.

Even the guards were close to being part of the family, and not just because I had grown up with some of them: at one point on their island patrols they would pass along the foreshore in front of the cabin, ducking under the jetty, and on hot afternoons my father would intercept them with orange juice and biscuits.

It is a running theme of my latest book Still On The Sound that the island exerts an irresistible pull. After my father’s death in 1977 we all continued to return every summer, and even when Lynn and I arrived seven years ago in less than auspicious circumstances, following something of a life reversal, the place began from day one to work its way under our skin and into our hearts all over again.

It’s no accident that Still On The Sound is illustrated with colour photographs, or that it follows the pattern of the seasons, because an island year was bound to be a visual story and our daily routine is governed, more or less, by the weather, the tides and the time of year. Which makes, above all, for variety.

Lynn and I were battened down one evening a fortnight ago, just after the weather turned and we had to accept that another island winter was upon us, with its little discomforts.

The generator was humming reassuringly from the far end of the cabin. Eddie, our Westie, was curled up in front of the wood-burning stove and rain was drumming off the felt roof. A strong north-westerly wind was coming at the cabin from both the front and the undersides (the cabin boasts under-floor cooling, being built on stilts), and every few minutes the rug on the living room floor lifted and rippled beneath our feet.

Then the lights went out. Occasionally, the generator will run out of fuel, but when that happens the lights start to flicker and we have a few seconds’ warning. Not this time, though.

We are well used to fumbling in the dark for matches, so while Lynn lit the oil lamps I pulled on my oilskins, grabbed a torch and went to investigate. ‘Investigate’ is a strictly relative term, because having discovered that the fuel tank was still half-full and that the generator wasn’t going to start despite repeated pulls of the starter cord, I was at the limits of my engineering know-how.

I gave Lynn the bad news and left for the mainland the following morning, in horrible conditions, to hire a replacement and organise an engineer. Back on the island an hour later, with the hired machine perched on the middle seat of the dinghy, the boat was pitching and twisting beside the jetty and there was no way I was going to be able to lift the generator ashore single-handed, so I called for Lynn’s assistance. She too went through the oilskins ritual, and made her way cautiously down the jetty, which is treacherous at the best of times, but even worse when it’s slick with rain.

After an abortive attempt to slide the generator from boat to jetty, and an incautious step onto the slippery stern locker which brought an old back injury to life, Lynn sat on the edge of the jetty with her legs dangling over the boat, rested her elbows on her knees and shook her head.

I knew what she meant: the whole rigmarole, the unpredictability, the sheer physicality of daily life. And many a time in the early morning, aiming the rowing boat at the dinghy in a southerly force six, losing a hundred yards to sideways slippage and expending a ridiculous amount of energy rowing into the wind to regain them, I have shared her feelings, and more.

However. Fast-forward 24 hours. Wallace the engineer has come at short notice, fixed the generator and left; the wind has blown itself out in the small hours and the air is quite still; the temperature has risen, and a thin blanket of autumn mist is rolling off Ringhaddy Sound and leaving the water lustrous and aglow in its wake, all browns and reds and ochres, like one of Lynn’s landscapes, described by a better writer than me as having ‘mystical, translucent beauty’.

Lynn and I are on the shore, taking Eddie for his after-breakfast walk and making for our favourite corner of the island, a stretch of foreshore near the southeast point with views to the open lough, which is strewn with lichen-covered boulders, where nothing intrudes, and where the entire lough seems to be ours.

What a difference an island day makes.

Still On The Sound: A Seasonal Look at Island Life by Michael Faulkner, is published by Blackstaff Press with assistance from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Available from all good bookshops and online. For more info go to www.thebluecabin.com . Michael’s first book The Blue Cabin was also published by Blackstaff Press in 2006