Alexandra Fuller’s first book, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, an account of growing up on the family farm in Rhodesia, won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize in 2003. Her new book, The Legend of Colton H Bryant, is published by Simon & Schuster. She is 39 and lives in Wyoming with her American husband, Charlie, and their three children, Sarah, 15, Fuller, 11, and Cecily, 2

“Our holiday days are over,” I said to my husband, Charlie, recently. “I can’t justify getting on another plane.” The problem is my eco-guilt. I really can’t sit on a beach and calculate how many carbon pounds I’ve paid to get a tan. I prefer to go to our cabin in the hills of Wyoming, up in the old ranching country.

By the second week of June, the snow will have melted enough for us to get there. It’s in the foothills of the Wind River range, among trees, close to a creek with beaver dams and trout, and fabulous little hideaways for deer and elk and bald eagles, with the odd bear lurking by. We used to camp up there, but then it would snow in the middle of July and we’d have to pack up these miserable, damp children and go home and throw everyone in the bath. So, four years ago, Charlie built us a cabin.

I’ve been in love with the land since I went to live in Africa at the age of two. Growing up on a farm on the Mozambique border, we didn’t really do holidays: mum and dad were always working. Once, we went on a rather unseaworthy ship on Lake Malawi, which was great fun, but I spent much of my childhood on a horse, following my mother. If you loved horses and dogs, growing up in Africa was wonderful. Even today, after a week in a city I’m miserable.

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BACKGROUND

• My hols: Phil Daniels

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• My hols: David Mitchell

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• My hols: Colin Firth

BACKGROUND

• My hols: Ricky Gervais

• My hols: Sam Robards

• My hols: Jimmy Carr

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• My hols: Moby

Charlie is a great explorer — he was a guide on Mount Kilimanjaro and the Zambezi River. He grew up on a ranch in Wyoming, and we met playing polo. That sounds posh — but it was polo on a dust field with bush ponies. At first, we lived on the banks of the Zambezi, which was romantic but also very malarial, and I got quite sick. Eventually, Charlie got fed up with the disease and the corrupt politics, and we moved to the States.

When our children were small, we’d go to Mexico, which I love — but, unfortunately, Americans have done horrible things in Acapulco and Cancun. They’ve built garish casinos and awful hotels where you see these drunken, miserable-looking people. But parts of Mexico still have lovely, forgotten old towns, and we like to rent a car and discover them.

Today, Charlie works in real estate, trying to save land like ours for conservation. That’s how he found our cabin spot. The Wind River range is part of the Yellowstone National Park, one of the last intact temperate ecosystems in the world. Our cabin is tiny, just one room, so you can be playing backgammon in the sitting room and open the fridge at the same time. There are two little beds in the loft, an old bathtub we rescued from a field and a washing machine — vital as everyone gets so muddy.

Each morning when I wake, my mare spots me from her corral. No matter how quietly I creep out of bed, she screams for food. Then I have to feed everyone: horses, dogs, children and my mum and dad, who have a cabin next door. We build a fire early to stop the mosquitoes, then we go for a ride.

I so love riding: it’s the one time I really switch off. When I’m having difficulty with my writing, I’ll get on my horse and that does the trick. My horse is an Arab called Sunday, and she’s marvellous. She also seems to understand when she’s carrying the baby — I prop Cecily in front of me in an endurance saddle and off we go.

After lunch, in that lovely, long middle of the day, I write while the baby naps. Charlie may take the kids down to the creek, where everyone has a good splash in the ice-cold water. It’s so cold you start to ache after a bit, and you’ve got to watch out for moose hanging around the willows.

In the evening, we always light a fire and candles, and we eat outdoors. According to my dad’s tradition, nobody goes to bed before they’ve told a joke, sung a song or told a story. The thing I love is that the day feels like the proper number of hours. You don’t have your phone or e-mail or any of those things that seem to distort time. And the best thing is, we don’t need to get on a plane to get there.

Alexandra Fuller talked to Ann McFerran

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