If I lie here, on the edge of sleep,
And think of you long enough,
Will that bring you back to me?

If I imagine you with all my senses -
The feel of you, the taste of you, the scent -
Will that bring you back to me?

Some nights, as my mind evades sleep,
I remember how often I tried
To reach out and hold you and keep
Your reality here by my side.

Some nights,as I whisper to no one,
I remember how often you'd...

I returned to an Australia which seemed to have changed little during my four-year absence. In a way this was re-assuring. I had done and seen so much that was new and exciting that I was replete with adventuring. There had been, perhaps, a surfeit of travel, sexual experimentation and learning. Having emerged from a near-Paradise granted to few of us so early in life, it was time to pause for breath. Time to reflect on lessons learned and to formulate plans for the future.

My father,...

During the ten years between finishing high school and getting married, I led a strange existence. To a degree I was still shackled by the chains of the previous sixteen years but, concurrently, I experienced a glorious sense of liberation and felt free to make my own decisions and chart my own course through life.

Inevitably I made mistakes, but I also had some wonderful adventures and learned a great deal about myself and about the world around me. Looking back, I marvel at how reckless...

I think I've just received my first ever "Dear John" letter.

I'm glad it didn't come when I was young and in my prime. I think I would have been utterly crushed. Rejection is far easier to accept when you're allegedly mature.

But it still makes you feel sad ...

In 1993 my wife and I had only three children. We planned to have three more and we agreed that we wanted to find a perfect place to live. If and when we found that place, we agreed that we wanted to build the house, the home where we and our family would live happily ever after.

After many long drives through the beautiful countryside of Western Australia's southwest coastal region, we one day turned down a side road where unspoilt land was for sale in sizes ranging from five to twenty...