I'm retired. Now I have time to get outdoors on weekdays when all you folk are at work and stay home at weekends when you are all out. You'd be surprised how much more widlife is about when the countryside is emptier. I used to be a teacher. That meant I had to take holidays when everyone else did so it was hard to get away from it all. As for the freelance artist bit: this is what my wife does and is never likely to retire from it. For much of her adult life, apart from when bringing up our two sons, she had to work as a lecturer in Art History. She also ran courses to enable artists, writers, musicians and dancers to work in schools. Most of her students could be decribed as freelance, but all had an "angle" to supplement living from their art, hence their attendance on her course.
Have you looked at Wayland's site? He looks to me to have a dream job, but his site demonstrates a lot of skill, expertise and hard graft. And I bet he has a lot of admin to worry about.
When I was a student, one of my lecturers described the dream job as finding something you loved doing and then getting someone to pay you for doing it. David Beckham seems to be a man who cracked it.
Good luck.
