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When we dream of Paradise, it is an island. It is tear-shaped and sea-lapped. It is lonely, remote and utterly free from the anxieties and expectations of modern life. And because it is a tiny island, it is conquerable, it is yours.

I have dabbled in this dream. I have woken with the blistery sun, bathed naked in the calm waters beneath my timber home, and dined on fish cooked over an open fire.

My island was called Runo, just 400 metres square, one of over 24,000 islands (nobody knows exactly how many) in the Stockholm Archipelago, some no bigger than a beached whale. In the winter, the brackish Baltic Sea freezes, and the only way to reach Runo is a treacherous walk over the ice. But in the summer, a tiny boat-taxi took us - myself, my boyfriend and our toddler daughter - from Stavnas on the mainland.

The boat-taxi's skipper seemed to have swaggered from the pages of a Jack London novel. Dour and taciturn, Jepsen (pronounced Yepsan) did not deign to talk to us, but tugged on his droopy moustache. Pulling up before a half-built wooden pier, Jepsen twitched his hand towards a small grey sea-bound hillock with a timber chalet teetering on top. 'Runo,' he said, in a husky drawl, making it sound like the name of a warmongering Viking god.

We clambered over the rocks. There was a jungle of ferns and bushes, blanketed with lichen. Wild mushrooms flourished in the spongy mess rotting the tall pine trees. There was no soil, just huge boulders, the sort a child stands on top of to declare themselves King. On Runo, we were the royal family. The smell of the pine cones crunching underfoot was intoxicating.

Runo may have been 400 metres square, but it was tough terrain. Behind our chalet, which my daughter christened the Magic House, rose our very own mountain, at least 50 metres high. But the loose shingle and smooth rocks made it - to my inflated island-induced imagination - a dangerous and challenging climb. Only a few footsteps from the safety of our chalet, there was Adventure.

Our neighbours were goats. But what elsewhere might have seemed a domesticated farmyard pet were wild and threatening on Runo. They became untamed beasts lurking in the undergrowth, with massive spiked horns. Once, one chased me, surely with the intention of goring me, and I had to run over the rocks to escape certain injury.

Fears fester on an island. And I became, therefore, astonishingly brave. I pictured myself not as a mere holidaymaker, but as explorer and warrior. I could conquer hostile territory and subdue wild beasts. I could release energies which lay buried in my safe urban existence and unearth the primitive in my soul.

Even buying a pint of milk was turned into a mental and physical challenge. The nearest store was on Runmaro, a neighbouring island with 200 inhabitants, and the only way to reach it was to take the small wooden boat tied to our pier. The inlets between the islands had to be carefully navigated; in some places, the water was so shallow that rocks lurked only inches under the surface. We needed to arm ourselves with charts, lifejackets, oars in case the tiny outboard engine faltered, and untold courage, before setting out for the shop.

Other islands were in sight, dotted about us like ships in the rippling sea. Occasionally, and especially at night, you could hear the inhabitants talk, although all in a language I couldn't understand. Echoing along the inlets and bouncing off the boulders, their voices sounded like the Norse gods conversing with the wind and the stars. Once, on a becalmed evening, the sound was so clear that when I heard someone sneeze several islands away I exclaimed, without thinking, 'Bless you'. The mouth of the fish breaking water to catch flies sounded like an orgy of kissing.

The Scandinavian summer gave early mornings and long nights, buzzing with midges. Our watches were packed away, and we rose, ate and slept when we wanted, and seldom dressed. One night, with the sun still struggling to warm the rocks at 10 o'clock, a mist appeared, rolling over the water and obscuring everything, even the shore below our house. We were truly cut off from the rest of the world.

The chance of losing all contact with other humans was both attractive and terrifying. It turns all island dwellers into hoarders. I threw away nothing, and became over-vigilant in my housekeeping. Was there going to be enough fresh water? What if we ran out of wood to cook on over the open fire? I panicked when I opened the kitchen cupboard and found only two loaves of bread, and saw that our eggs were down to a mere dozen. What if the mist didn't lift? What if the engine on our boat failed and we would not be able to reach Runmaro for weeks?

There was a serpent in our patch-sized Garden of Eden. Island living didn't unleash talents and traits that the city had smothered. It brought out the woman in me and the man in my man. In our Swedish Family Robinson, he skippered the boat, he caught the fish, he gathered and chopped the wood for the fire. I cleaned and cooked and looked after our daughter like a cavewoman. Even worse, I enjoyed it.

I didn't much like the person I was becoming. Rather than an unencumbered free spirit, I quickly turned proprietorial. Runo’s size and seclusion fed the fantasy that we actually owned the island, a piece of Paradise. This was my mountain behind the house, my slippery rocks, my waterfront.

Soon, visitors were unwelcome. They were only objects of interest from afar. Who was that paddling up our creek? Where were they going? If a craft approached, I would run down to the shore and glower out to sea, warding them off with my eyes.

We waited on the pier with our bags for Jepsen to take us back to work, to worries and to continental land. Next week, another family would move into the Magic House, clamber over our rocks and climb our mountain. Our departure had the pain of surrendering. I put on my watch and turned home.

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