Van Diemen's Land

Not half an hour from my front door is this little patch of paradise.
It's the site of a convict ruin - an old flour mill.
It's peaceful and quiet.
The water running over the rocks is usually warmed by the sun.
It's terrific in the summertime as the river is nice to swim in, and once you've finished swimming you can plonk yourself into one of the rockpools and let the water run over you.
There's something supremely relaxing about sipping beers in a natural rock pool.
There's all kinds of birdlife to sooth - eagles, herons, kookaburras.
Twitters, tweets and squawks.
As the water trickles through your toes, you can sip your beer, perhaps nibble on another slab of Tasmanian brie, feel the hot sun on your face...
So why on Earth am I leaving this all behind?
Well it was almost 10 years ago I moved here for personal reasons that I don't feel inclined to get into just now.
I was working in animation before I left and when I got here that's mostly what I was doing.
Then I moved into live action production and animation took a back seat.
Art didn't dissapear completely from my life.
Every year I would produce some new pieces and I exhibited a few times over the years.
Then this whole blogging thing started and I realised that I'd kind of let myself go to seed a bit.
My efforts had been concentrated on all this live action commercial production, After Effects editing and whatnot, and I'd lost sight of what I was really about.
Seeing the work of everyone here really does make me think I'm a good 10 years behind the rest of you, which frankly scares the shit out of me.
I'm not sure if there's the opportunity to catch up, but I'm going to see what I can do.
I have no firm date for leaving - there's some housey things I need to finish before I put it on the market - but I imagine that I'll be wending my way across the globe sometime in the next 6 months.
I intend to be heading through some bits of the USA, certainly visiting Europe and intend to end up somewhere in the UK.
My folks are both Brits which entitles me to a British passport and the opportunity to work there.
So it's all about starting again I suppose, and getting back to what my life was supposed to be about.
Anyone who bothered to read all of this is entitled to a prize, sexual in nature.