I’ve been away.

For the past two weeks I travelled north to the petite village of Federal, situated in the hilly hinterlands of Byron Bay. We have five acres there – our slice of paradise, peaceful refuge from the ravages of contemporary society.

Presently we have a three bedroom cedar and glass home, rural rustic, which we plan to occupy permanently next month while we build a new place at the far end of the property 400 metres away, around a bend. Here I will write my next book while taking up a post one day a week, lecturing in the English department at the Southern Cross University, Lismore.

I have three competing storylines that I am compelled to write once ensconced at Federal, but one requires attention right now, it’s will unfurl remarkable social incidents and a great deal of intellectual stamina surrounding a landmark case in Australian law in 1816. Research has uncovered lengthy accounts of the young barristers and old governing farts involved and reads like a generational saga: full of romance, immense wealth created from modest beginnings, and of course large slices of the pomp and egocentric behaviour of the British ‘settlers’, arrogant in the extreme.