About two weeks ago, I reshaped a friend’s surfboard into two suitcase seized bits. Sadly both did not perform as well as the original board and have now been sent to a miracle worker who plans to stick them back together, for a small fee. It will of course never be the same again, kind of like sticking a marie biscuit back together and then using it as additional foot support in your shoe! Fear not Spider, the shaper, is making an exact replica for my mate and I will soon be the proud owner of the reinforced marie biscuit! I might just convert it into a coffee table!

Last week was also interesting. It was the culmination of mishap central in our household, all of it disgusting and dirty except for the last part!

In all of the Xenophobia chaos, I assisted somebody we know by helping them remove all of their worldly possessions from their rented place. It ended up being stored in our garage. Safe! That is until we realised that it was the source of an invasion of oriental cockroaches. After much frantic washing, spraying and disinfecting, everything was pretty much under control. My wife then discovered that when the female roach, lets call her Antoinette, dies, she drops a sack that she has spent her lifetime filling with eggs. Antoinette’s offspring are thus lovingly released into the world to continue their reign of terror. This knowledge had my wife inviting the exterminator for a visit at his earliest convenience. Lets say that the problem has now been solved.

With Antoinette’s offspring and their dirty, creepy, disgusting ways on her mind, my wife could hardly be blamed for what happened next. On route through a complex with real live wild animals of the somewhat larger kind, she spotted a beautiful buck. She did not spot the inverted speed hump and hence was unable to adjust her speed. Technology later indicated that my cars oil sump lovingly embraced the far side of this speed hump and tried desperately to stay there. Only a small portion of oil was lucky enough to remain at the scene. The rest of the oil can be found on the streets of our town. It may surprise you to learn that a sump full of oil and a new sump to hold it all can be purchased for the princely sum of 2 and a half surfboards. And I know about half surfboards! This dirty problem was solved late last week and my car now seems happy to hold onto its fresh new lubricant.

Being a family now focussed on utmost cleanliness, I broke out the pool brush in order to give the pool a friendly rub down. This is something I have done infrequently for years. I suddenly had a deep longing for a cool winter swim and without another thought gracefully slipped in. I less than gracefully slipped right back out again. Whilst stripping off my soggy shoes, pants, and jersey I discovered that my wallet had needed a wash but my cell phone was allergic to water. Operation blow dry commenced with great speed. After a couple of minutes the display flickered feebly a couple of times and died. For the first time in years, probably not since my kuif back in the late eighties, I picked up the hairdryer and tried my best to give it the blow of life. Our house exploded with joy as it came back to life. My memory stick on the other hand was not as lucky and saw the inside of both the washing machine and tumble dryer. Not sure what happened in the tumble dryer but it was certainly not dry when it came out. After giving it a turn in our blow dry theatre, we proved that one can take a memory stick for a swim, a wash and a tumble and still use the thing with no apparent ill effects!

My wife and I are quite hopeful that we will stop breaking stuff!

As for Antoinette and her offspring, history!

My post today is a little different. I took some pictures of things around my house, trying to see them from a different perspective.

Amazing what you find inside herb oil - looks like stuff dumped in the sea next to a harbour. Someone probably ate the old tyre, there are always old tyres in the sea next to harbours!

They go up and they go down. Usually up when you want down and down when you want up. They come in sexy colours like this one in tartan. Very useful in the rain except if the rain is accompanied by wind, alas no good in Cape Town!

Last round anyone, even if it is 40 year old miniture Cokes?

Yes, some folks still use the good old spagetti mop. Us too it would seem....


Steven Covey talks about sharpening the saw. I think he meant continuous improvement of your own skill set. My saw is looking like it needs to retire!

This is the sharp end of my axe. Not quite in a state to chop off a leg if it got in the way but useful nonetheless!

I have been looking for the key to life. Even this one does not seem to fit! Perhaps there is not just one key, there are many! I am about to embark on a new venture within my great adventure. It may hold one of the keys that I have been looking for or it may just be an interesting diversion.

It is a great gift to be a surfer and be able to read the ocean in such a way that you know which waves will work and which not. Most of us just guess. Surfers have a great saying similar to nothing ventured, nothing gained. We say; if you don't go, you wont know!

I need to go to know if this key is right!

I had one of those weeks last week. A week where my life started off full of chaotic home based mayhem as most do. My book was only one chapter behind on my latest book plan and more than two thirds complete. My running, Xhosa and surfing were on track as were all of my other commitments. I was hoping for another simple week of writing. Instead I got a call;

‘Please do some work for us on a project in Africa!’

‘Huh??????’

This was not in my plan for my life at all. Well, at least not for the next 6 months. I have always known that management consulting would possibly be a fall back position next year when it was time to start earning the mighty rand again. But not now!

My first reaction was that I have things to do. There are all of my commitments, my family, my photography and of course my book. And yet, here is an opportunity of fantastic proportions that could kick start that elusive income into the future as I build a consultancy. So this could work for me! More than that, this is a test of whether all of the stuff that I have been writing about balancing your life can work in reality, rather than in my imagination while I sit in my comfortable high back office chair. Is it possible to run a professional and successful management consultancy that fits into my core value of family first? Will I be able to balance my time effectively so that I continue to give my children and my wife the best parts of me? Do I have the ability to sell and implement my skills in the open market place? What a challenge to my abilities and deepest thoughts. This is a challenge I cannot refuse!

And so my week was filled with all sorts of thoughts, apprehensions, plans, internet searches, and deep soul searching. Shamefully, not a word was written!

My last 6 months have been spent writing in English, speaking lots of Afrikaans and learning Xhosa. I have never been a languages person and yet somehow have managed to access a very different part of my brain to be just that. Yesterday, my old brain kicked into gear. Yes, it was a frightening moment, but suddenly the ‘where do I start?’ fear was replaced by a cold certainty that I knew what to do!

It is time for my theory to hit the road. Is true balance attainable? Can one turn one’s life on its head and make it work? I hope to show you that anyone can!

I spent the last couple of days experimenting with some lighting techniques involving white backgrounds. So far I have had very mixed results as models are scarce, my lights fire intermittently and my skill level is low. I know now why I did not pick up my camera too often when it was filled with film.

My first model was a little frisky! But with some perseverance I managed to subdue the little critter with enough watt hours of light to power the local bakery. The cat on the other hand was pretty amenable but I had to intervene when it started to sniff the chair like a big hunk of tuna!

My second model was an expensive one. Although I tried to light her up with all of the neighbours power, she still almost fell asleep. Luckily my style was so cool, she decided to stay. Forever!

Please note that those pink slippers are looking for a dog with big teeth to love them...

Shes a good model, I think I will keep her!

I need a job to pay for the second interesting event this weekend. Take a look at this picture of me surfing. Please note that all photos are curtesy of the amazing and incerdible Steve Clapham!

Things seem to be in control apart from my ape like stance! This is just a wave to be ridden like any other....

On this next photograph, I have indicated the little problem that was soon to rear its ugly head. Rocks under the wave caused a little suck up just ahead of me. That suck up created a step in the wave, just over a meter in height. I was probably thinking about why my knuckles were not dragging in the water and that I would need to perhaps work on a more ape like stance, or something!

And the net result =

Sadly, it was not my board as I had injured mine about 2 weeks ago but a board I borrowed from a friend. The only thing he said to me when he loaned it to me was, “don’t break it as I need it for my Indonesia trip next month!” Oops!

Luckily for him, it will fit neatly into his suitcase now!

It has to be said, an interesting weekend in my life. One of the interesting things was a proposal from a multinational beverage company to undertake some work in Africa. This was a fork in the road that I did not expect. Certainly not now!

After six months of writing about the concept of money, power, and prestige, I now had to apply my principles in the real world. Do I give up this wonderful lifestyle, filled with family time and meaningful work on both my book and a number of charities, or is it already time for me to return to reality?

I don’t think that I have cracked the writing thing. Yet! My writing has improved dramatically since I started but it not yet in the league where it is going to sell numerous copies of my book. I have made peace with the fact that if all I deliver is a special book that is meaningful to my sons then this whole year will have been worth while. There are only a few chapters to go and lots of editing work but at least I am a long way down this road. Fear not, I will be finishing it!

If I get this contract, it could mean the start of my own consultancy, which is something that I had hoped to think about only later in the year, post the book! As usual, the timing of this opportunity is not as I would have planned! Sometimes, one needs to grab the opportunities that come our way. I think that this could be one of those times in my life.

Besides, I get to put into practise all of those things that I have been writing about. Perhaps this little practical will help my writing to mature further! Or perhaps I will discover that it is far easier to write about things than actually go out and do them!

I have many wonderful male friends whose support, advice and friendship has been invaluable throughout my life but absolutely critical over the last couple of months. I have enjoyed many deep and exciting conversations that have challenged my thinking in many ways. These friends have encouraged my further growth and development and been deeply concerned about my wellbeing. I could not be where I am today without them all.

Yesterday, I met a fellow traveller on a similar path to mine. That in itself was an incredible highlight, to actually find somebody with very similar thoughts and ideals. More than that, we did something very different, certainly a first in my life. We set aside a whole day for a chat.

In a world where men spend most of their time stalking their prey with stealth and cunning, like leopards. In an explosion of aggression and speed, they pounce and rip apart the unsuspecting victim with their superior force. Without compassion, they drain their new found prize of all its life and joy, till it lies unmoving and rotten.

And we had a chat! For the whole day....

It is hard to describe a discussion that was so deep and wide ranging. Where I was able to bare my soul without fear and know that I too was getting a deep look at the soul of another. Where ideas and thoughts tumbled forth to be encouraged with more ideas and thoughts. Where my half baked theories were exposed for what they were and I was inspired to look further and deeper for answers than I had ever done before.

It is funny for me as a guy to write about a discussion. I suppose that this is a space generally reserved for crackpots, billionaires, nutty professors, and one or two orderlies from the mental ward! It was simply two men catching up on a lifetime of very separate experiences linked by a common bond, the need to serve others. Yesterday was a gift. One of those rare occasions where one connects to another human individual on a level so deep that it frightens.

A new friendship has been born. I know that both of us had the feeling that this day was so important that our lives have been changed. Our futures radically altered in ways that we are yet to experience. The great possibility that the power of two is so much greater than one. We can shake the world!

This was just a chat, that may have changed my life!

I am on another journey today. Strange, but my journey today started long ago.

Way back in 99, my wife and I flew from London to Munich. We stood in different passport queues and hers was way faster than mine. I saw her chatting to some suave chap on the other side and wondered who had the audacity to chat up my wife. I got through and met this guy who seemed very pleasant. My wife who is in the travel business had assisted him through passport control as his visa was wrong and was only valid for the next day. He was off to Kitzbuhl to meet his girlfriend and we were off to Saalbach, both skiing resorts in Austria. He thought that they might end up in Saalbach. Like good South Africans, we agreed to have a beer if we saw them.

And that should have been the end.

A couple of days later we bumped into him and his girlfriend in Saalbach. We had a little chat and declared that we now really do have to have that beer. But we didn’t, probably because these are things that you just say.

And that should have been the end.

We woke up the next morning and rushed down to breakfast. I am rather an eager beaver when it comes to getting busy on my snowboard! Sitting at a breakfast table in our pension was this same couple. The beer idea was starting to seem preordained. It turned out that they had the room next door to ours in the pension. We all got on famously and had ourselves an awesome skiing holiday. We also drank more than just that one beer!

And that should have been the end.

You see, they lived in Cape Town and we lived in Johannesburg. Still, we were invited to their wedding. Later they were transferred to Joburg and were actually staying at our house when our first son was born. We spent some good time together through the years that we lived on the Reef. We were then transferred to Cape Town and just a couple of months later, they too were back here.

Now this cannot be the end!

My son turned 7 a couple of weeks ago and so they came over for a braai. He told me about one of his friends that had recently packed in the corporate world, resigned and decided to run a charity in order to make a difference in the world. I became a little interested as the story he was telling was so similar to mine. Now through the years that we had known each other, I had met this particular chap many times. We had always gotten on well and yet I had never known that our paths and outlooks were so similar. So much for the value of party small talk! I got his number intending to give the guy a call.

But this guy called me!

He too had shared a meal with these mates of mine and was amazed by the story my friend told him about me. I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful it is to find a fellow traveller on this divergent path of mine.

Today we are going walking in the mountains. Who knows what will come from today but I have a feeling that this meeting is not born out of chance!

Another week of solid learning!

I had started to edit one of my earlier chapters, chapter five, late last week. It was like pulling teeth. It was pretty de-motivating to read something that I had already edited thoroughly three times to find that it was so incredibly bad. It did not flow, the points were poorly made and most points were just lost in the words. Surprisingly, I was not really perturbed.

One of my goals this year is to learn Xhosa. Luckily my eldest son’s school has offered Xhosa to parents as a course. Lesson two was last week and heaps of fun. Also being the only boy in the class helps a lot. It sure feels funny to be back at school but at least this time, I want to be there!

I was given the opportunity to take class photographs for the children at my youngest son’s school this week. That required some nifty preparation work over the last few weeks as I have had to learn about light and portraits. I kidnapped my wife to be my safety blanket on this assignment. She understands all of the mommy things about pictures, like hairstyles, clean faces, and wiped noses. Stuff that floats past me in the ether. We made a great team and took some wonderful pictures! I learnt oh so much!!!

Back at our office, I needed to learn how to process just under 400 photographs to ensure that the pictures are brilliant in as little time as possible. To that end, I have learnt how to use a simple function in Photoshop called ‘actions’. Simply put, this is a way of setting up your system so that I push one button and it does all sorts of time consuming things in the background. It has revolutionised my processing abilities!

And then I went back to my problem chapter. Spent a couple of hours reorganising and culling and ended up with something pretty good. When I read it through again last night, it sounded incredibly wise!

There can only be one explanation, somebody fiddled with it the night before!!