Showing posts with label guest blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guest blog. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

So Close

This has not happened before - a guest writer on my blog. Stevo of Stevo Images was so quick off the mark to describe the craziness of Sunday night, I got him to agree to share his piece right here. Stevo is also of course the intrepid photographer who documents my every misstep out on the waves...

8pm Sunday September 11 and the silence in our sleepy crescent is shattered by a single gunshot.

I pause the surf DVD I'm watching, cock my ear, raised voices, 2 more shots ring out!

I open the front door, the sound of my neighbour racking his 9mm punctuates the still air; I step out to see what's going on - it seems a moonlit night's skate mission may have disturbed guys who had another agenda. 

Within seconds armed response vehicles screech to a halt - "shots fired man down send for #@! backup now... over" - my eyes follow the beam of torchlight, the same direction the guns are pointed, and see a body, motionless, half on the grassy verge our gardener has manicured only the day before. 

The radio crackles, calls for backup now needed down the road; cars screech off, replaced by more emergency vehicles. 



I get told to move inside (and promptly return armed with my Canon) - crime tape now blocks the road.

Neighbours stand around in groups discussing what has just unfolded as police comb the area marking spent shell cases, gathering evidence. 

It seems the gang shot one of their own in a case of mistaken identity! Awesome!

I get called over by a police colonel and get told to stop taking photos of his crime scene.

Many hours later, I eventually drift off to sleep to the sounds of vehicles, voices and barking dogs . . .

This morning there is no sign of any of last night’s drama in the flowerbed . . .

More to come...


 

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

An update of sorts

I keep making excuses and today that just had to stop. I am determined to post a blog. This very blog you happen to be reading is the fruit of weeks of useless procrastination...

I have decided it will be an update blog! The highlights of my life, as exciting as they are...

I was recently invited to guest blog on somebody else’s site. A pretty big honour and so followed through with a couple of words on fatherhood. Check it out here http://gillianhefer.blogspot.com/ (the Monday 15 February post).

My daughter is growing in leaps and bounds and starting to become her own real little person. The other night she woke up just once; it was like six Christmas’s and my birthday all rolled into one. Tell you the truth, I have found it a serious challenge to work my day away and wake up continuously at night, and then repeat the cycle for nights on end. The prospect that it may soon become manageable again, fills me with much latent excitement!

Luke has spent two Saturdays recently at the beach trying to surf his way into the Boland Grommet surfing team as an under 10. That of course means that daddy also has to spend his days on the beach. As an 8 year old, he also gets to have a ‘caddy’ in the water. I thoroughly enjoy being his caddy as it gives us some wonderful bonding time together. Of course it does mean that I get a couple of intense aqua aerobic sessions as I charge from the beach to backline and then back to the beach to collect Luke and repeat as many times as possible in 20 minutes. This past Saturday, he caught some awesome waves and surfed them so well, I could see his manoeuvres from well behind the wave. I was exhilarated! So far he has come second in both trials and made me exceptionally proud.

Matt on the other hand has started to become the most helpful kid on the block. He is into everything from cleaning the dishes to helping with dinner preparations. He has also started to skate on the halfpipe and doing very nicely at that! He is enjoying the social side of school a little too much and causing his fair share of chaos over there!

And then there is my good wife. She is back to gym twice a week and thoroughly enjoying it. The fact that she now fits back into clothes from before Matthews birth has made her smile for weeks Regardless, I think she is beautiful and wonderful, no matter what clothes she fits into

Tweety is doing well. Her electrics are 75% complete. I have also ordered the last remaining parts from the good old US of A. My latest discovery is that unless you are customising your Golf with luminous lights, skeleton shaped gear levers, or nitro conversions, you are not going to find the after-market parts for your car. Hence my need to ask the people over the sea to send some decent stuff over here! There is no way that I could expect Tweety to wear common stuff, only the best will be good enough!! Once they arrive in the next week or so, it should only take a week to finish her off and another week to touch up the paint work. After more than a year of anticipation, I am a little jaded by this project. But just maybe, it will come to be soon!

On the work front, things have gone bananas. I have been giving it horns since the beginning of December and the diary is full till the end of March. As a consultant in my own business, it could not be better! Apart from the fact that I have had to cancel a couple of my Monday morning surf sessions...

And then my ‘Fix a House’ project, where I aim to go and fix roofs and walls of some sick and infirm peoples’ shacks in Sir Lowry’s Village has amassed just more than R42,000. Yeha!!! Now I just need to find some time to spend it and do some good in this poor community.

And that’s just the fun stuff...