I love your ambitions, I think we all have them. I can understand your desire to leave the race completely but as other have mentioned that is much harder than we think, council tax, fuel, equipment, clothes etc all costs and while you have some income through your part time IT work that will just mean being a in a different part of the race.
The fact you have some basic knowledge is also a good starting ground.
My advice would be to look into a chap called Ben Laws who lived in a wood for about 10 years, built his own house, grew his own food and was completely off grid. I believe you can pay and have a look around his woods, house and way of life. He was featured on Grand Designs and it worked out for him.
The other thing would be to look into wwoofing, no it's not some dodgy backwoods activities!
http://www.wwoof.org/ is the website, its basically where for bed and board you can work at peoples smallholdings and farms which will get your practical hands on skills improved and an improved view of the type of life you are looking to lead by the people you meet.
I would also say look into small holding as a way of life, river cottage have an ok forum with the road to river cottage quite relevant for this conversation.
I would imagine that you are thoroughly sick of the day to day grind, my feelings are that if you do enough of what you enjoy you can make life bearable. For me thats my allotments, the outdoors and occassional camping along with my full time work. For other people that isn't enough.
Good luck with your plans, whether that is home or abroad.
Stephen