Another Year, Another Blog Post

So much has changed and so much has stayed the same.

I love reading through the blog posts and anecdotes of my past. The meandering of thoughts and experiences. Sitting here on my patio on a summery Friday night with the sound of thunder and dogs barking, the mood is decidedly pensive.

The year 2018 has been a year full of discovery and re-alignment for me. Or perhaps that has been true for most of my post 40th birthday life? Refining and re-aligning who I am and the goals I want to pursue in my life and career.

I love how easy it has become to access your forgotten blog years later. I remember how it use to take me hours to find my way back in if I did not write for a while and today it was a few simple clicks and here I am - back online.



My son has grown into a dashing young man, full of the emotional intensities and contradictions the teenage years bring. Excitable and unpredictable but oh so gorgeous! I am 100% in love with this guy. His sense of fairness and oh the natural ability to debate the hind leg of a donkey. Every day is an emotional adventure and I am so eternally great full for the years of love an support and input I have received from my coaches and mentors, otherwise I would never have been able to be the objective, supportive, loving observer of his chaos. I would have been head first in the middle of it, escalating it to the point where dramatic rescue operations would have been required to ensure survival.

This blog post was published a year after it was initially written

Oh the irony

Single again, at least in theory.

Starting to write again, my coach has been encouraging me for years to put thoughts to paper. For some reason I have felt too closed off, curled up and locked away to even consider it. Rather play mindless games, hypnotizing myself. Hiding away. So much easier than facing the disappointments, fears and rationalization of happiness - unfelt.

So much has happened though....to say the least.

But for now - the funny heartbreaking truth of today is that life and love is truly circular.

Should this post be called - The near past

Three months in Estonia, a country of mists, faeries and lore. Filled with forests and a people foraging for freedom and recognition. An economy straining against a communist past and the current threat of regional instability spilling over from Russia and the Ukraine.

Time spend there has offered a life changing experience, an opportunity for self reflection and redefinition. For me as a person, for us as a family, for the business, the product, the future. Moving forwards and putting roots down deeper at the same time.

Learning to really live in the moment, capturing the smells and the feel of the cold air on my skin, the sounds of Old Town, the green in my son's eyes.

 Shape - our first month in Tallinn was spend on speed mentoring, customer validation and questioning everything we knew about our product, business and selves. An immensely intense and emotional experience with the ultimate aim of delivering a far more clearly defined business, product and team. Personally the process was very taxing as the constant questioning of 'common knowledge' does result in you questioning your own abilities and decisions. The challenge is filtering all the inputs and retaining what is relevant and important for the business to progress. I believe we retained a lot, however I also believe that we could possibly have retained more if we better understood the process and our own end goals as a business -  that only came clear much later on.

The best part of August though was the warm weather and the month spend with Elrich in Old Town. I think the presence of my ever inquisitive little guy was the saving grace of an otherwise really taxing time during the programme.

We did a lot of fun things and he loved the adventure and all the new experiences. Up and down towers, rowing on rivers, sailing on the Baltic Sea, eating frog legs and hot roasted almonds, buying freshly harvested mushrooms and berries from local markets - each experience was enthusiastically embarked upon.  With Hermien's insatiable hunger for new experiences and knowledge there was not a street they did not walk in or shop they did not investigate in Old Town. For the first time in his living memory my kid lived under the same roof with both his parents. A very special time for him and one that I believe had an immense influence on him, even if it did open up age old wounds and led to teary conversations between us.

The near future

In the next couple of days I am going to board a plane to Estonia for a three month period. Pressing pause on my personal goals and dreams for 2014. The house I so carefully designed will not be build, the dedicated work programme to progress Vissie and my riding will take a back seat. Often we forget the cost that comes with success, the dedication and sacrifice required when a new door is opened to us.

I am as scared as I am excited about this opportunity. I truly feel as if my life is going to change completely in the next couple of months and I am not sure I am ready for it. Saying that, I have been wanting change in my career - MTS has been hard work, but I have become extremely bored in my role there. I feel as if I have outgrown my role and that I need space to grow, space that is simply not available in the current structure. My frustration has grown to a level of impatience with the mining industry and the particular intricacies and contradictions that knock on our doors on a daily basis. Not good for me and even less so for the business and our clients.

The previous time I boarded a plane to chase a dream I was so excited that I did not even think that my bold move would be the start of the end of my marriage. Ironic then that I have to share this trip with Phil in a strange country.

Oh my gosh - I just read this previously unpublished post......have been back for a week today already and the experience was everything and more than I could have imagined

Rear View

It is hard to believe that a year has passed since my last blog post, I believe that only a hand full of entries have been made over the last couple of years. I think it is indicative of the stage my life went through. One where all the focus was external - the business, my child, my relationship with John, running from pillar to post to try and meet all the expectations, fulfill all the responsibilities.

Then lately, introspection. Lots of questions about me and who I am. The needs, fears and desires of the forty something me. An executive coach to speak to. Someone that knows how to engage my limits, voids and strengths. I am learning that I need to own me - all of me. I can be proud of my accomplishments without fear of embarrassment.

My life is about learning, loosing, growing.
It is about building and rebuilding
My love, relationships, business, self.

Exotic,
a lotus flower,
always floating,
even when
murky waters lurks
beneath

Goodness Me

What a mission to find my way around blogger again. It is unbelievable how much have changed over the last couple of years, touching all aspects of my life. In particular the last couple of weeks the desire to start penning down my life experiences has increased again, hence the resurrection of my blog. I am sure as I get back into writing my proficiency with the pen will increase as the locked up creativity are let loose.

Black Board Art

My kid, noting his displeasure at me for going to work for one quick meeting and only getting out of the office four hours later. I must say his patience were good and he did amuse the team.

Dam Wall Breaking

As of today we can officially count all the major mining houses in South Africa on our client list.

We have outgrown the 250 square meter offices we moved into during March this year.

A major industry magazine in SADEC have become our media partners

We are hosting the first ever Transformation Indaba in November, with support from print media, television and our major clients

Our brand is recognised as representing the leading Transformation Specialists in the Industry

Goose Egg Rescue

At the bottom of our property we have a dam, with two resident wild geese. They have decided to nest on our island a couple of meters of shore. Yesterday Puppies chased them all over the dam, swimming in the freezing cold water, determined to once an for all get rid of these intruders on her property. I noticed that instead of leaving all together they kept her away from the island and thought that there must be more to this than the obvious, but in the middle of winter? that dam has a layer of ice on early in the mornings it is so cold at the moment.

Alas, not long and I noticed Puppies coming out of the water with something in her mouth. Yip, a goose egg and even though she picked it up and swam with it across the dam, it was not damaged at all. So I could not do anything else, but swim across to the island the return the poor eggnapped baby. I hope they dont abandon the nest now.

Love is

Kira-Marie, E's little sweetheart. It started to bloom round about valentines this year, when her mom stopped me one morning to tell me that her daughter has a crush on my son. About a week later E told me he has a serious secret, just to spill all the beans about five seconds later. That he really likes Kira......so fast forward a couple of months and this is the conversation on the way back from school.

Mom, guess what? no, what my boy.....I have a secret. Really? can you tell me your secret....a little guessing game is played and out he comes with 'I love Kira-Marie, I dont just like her, I love her'. So I had to ask how he knows he loves her. Because she is so beautifull. Oh, I said, and what about the other beautiful girls in your class? No, he says, when you love somebody, they are beautiful from inside your eyes........so simple, but now I understand love too.

The volatile face of poverty

(Photo: Beeld)

Yesterday our team could not go on site to a client as members from their host community and retrenched workers had a violent protest in which they stopped the mine bus, rolled it over and set it on fire with nine people seated inside. Fortunately the commuters all escaped the fire, however, one of the men that has been working in a senior position at the mine for two years tried to calm the crowd down and got stoned to death as a result.

Our team was right there, on their way to the mine to have a meeting with the senior management on sustainable development principles. We had a recent audit on site in which we indicated to management that there were work to be done in respect of their approach to the host community. This incident however has highlighted to me the dire position communities are in and the need for transparent relationships between corporate, government and communities. We have a lot of work to do and I believe we have run out of time.

I never applied for this job

Don't get me wrong, i am very proud of what we have achieved in such a short period of time.......however, sometimes I cannot help but ask myself - what have you done?

One of our newest and arguably most professional team members referred to me as a hippie the other day. I could not argue with her at all. I am a bit of an idealist and tree hugger and sometimes all of these Corporate Governance issues just don't make any sense to me at all. I understand that a company like ours will go through growth phases and during those it is important to make sure that we get our house in order to balance between growth and stability. And that is a difficult balance to obtain and maintain continously.

So far we have done really well and I salute the team

Upholding the cross

Democracy in our country is still a fairly young experience and today, as I was standing in the line to cast my vote, I could not help but remember the first election I participated in. In 1994, when the lines snaked around the suburb I lived in. A party atmosphere in the air as all the citizens of this beautiful country waited together to choose a new future.

The line today was much shorter, more organised, people were more blase about the right to choose. Families making use of the public holiday to have another long weekend with trips planned across the country. My current suburb is mostly made up of more affluent families...mixing in line with their domestic workers, grooms and other support personel. A couple of people ahead of me a mature gentleman was standing, serenity edged on his face, dressed in his Sunday best. He was remembering the road we travelled to get here as a country, to arrive here at a space where we can share this priviledge to each mark their own choice, without coercion or fear.

We must, at all cost, protect this, as it was indeed, dearly won

Autumn is here

The season has changed and winter is on our doorstep. I feel it in my bum that just does not want to warm up at all - John is convinced that it is my cold feet that steals the heat from the derrier. I have to be honest, winter is not my strong season. All I want to do is cuddle up in bed and drink hot chocolate. Suppose the best thing about winter is the scarves and big jackets. I love dressing up in winter with bold scarves and funky jackets.

And this year - winter means soccer, and what a family of fierce players we are! In E's first soccer game the other day he got an injury (cut lip), scored a goal and got send of the field to cool down. I cannot tell a lie, my kid lives with a passion and determination that frequently lands him either in trouble or the hospital. Like last week, when he had five lacerations to the cornea and walk around for two days with an eye patch. Everyone at school is asking whether we have 'frequent user' cards at the local hospital. I am starting to think that it will be a very good idea.

And here we are

The dream of living on our little piece (peace??) of land eventually realised. From offer to purchase to registered owners took, almost to the day, a full year. But we somehow managed to convince the powers that be that two self employed entrepreneurs will be responsible land owners.

I could never have guessed that throwing two adults in the midst of a neglected property in the heart of mink and manure country could result in such a kaleidoscope of emotional experiences. It has opened rusted emotional doors, send us way back to childhood dreams and horrors, through psychedelic adult memories right back to the reality of flooded fences and washed away roads. We have learned about ourselves and each other through anger and tears but we have also studied our local African bullfrogs in wonder, delighted in the fascination of our children with the crabs down at the dam and stared in unbelieve as the waters from our local little stream rose to a power full river racing through the bottom of our property.

Despite the dream of becoming more sustainable and building a veggie patch and chicken coop to proof the commitment, we have not had much success in any of these endeavours. I am starting to dread full colour pictures of fat round organic veggies and promises of a greener future – my tomatoes started with enthusiasm and then turned white and rotted on the stem. The only joy I had from my beautiful pumpkin flowers was the flower dolmades that was lovingly made by Nana when she came to visit from Crete (a whole new story), then the leaves all turned brown and died. Okra has provided some confidence, we have had two good Cretan meals from that hardy little plant and the brinjals have also kept hunger from the door. Month-end the business will be moving from our little country flat to a very corporate office park and the two chickens that currently entertain us there will be relocated home – their little spot has been ready and waiting for about six weeks.

We have truly settled in here now, our candles are on standby to help us cope with all the electrical outages, we have come to enjoy the shocking experience accompanying the opening of taps when you are in the shower and the call of the peacocks don’t wake us at night anymore. John has turned into a DYI guru that can fix electrical fences, build outbuildings and even understand the mysteries of washing dishes.

We are slowly building a fun loving and emotionally safe future.

Racing Along

I cannot believe that we are in the middle of November, time has almost lost its meaning to me as we continue to speed along this highway of our life. The more I feel that I would like to slow down and enjoy the small things in life, the more it seems to me as if everything is just speeding up. Buying our home was such a long struggle and it seems as if every waking moment is either consumed by work or our property.


E is growing into a young man right in front of my eyes and I feel nostalgic about leaving his small childhood years behind. Next week it is his graduation from pre-school and the start of the long summer holidays. We are all graduating out of the informal schooling environment and impromptu trips and holidays to a far more structured educational environment next year. That together with the coming of age of two of my businesses will, I believe proof its own set of challenges.

I cannot tell a lie, 2010 was a very hard year, emotionally and financially but when I look back I can see how we have grown. Grown as a family and into a family; grown from a very small business to industry leaders in our field with a diverse set of clients across the mining sector and mature negotiations even outside of the mining sector. Building linkages and products in a niche market during an economic recession has taught me many valuable skills in business; the most important I believe is how crucial it is to have the ability to move with the market whilst you consolidate your base at the same time.

Us as a family, learning to live together in our home, oh dear, I do not even know where to start to try and capture the trials and tribulations of settling into our new home. But I think we are starting to jell as family and learning how to best love each other. Not to talk about our home starting to look slightly like a home and less like a family abiding in a neglected little house on an overgrown farm.

I am having so much fun choosing paint colours for the house at the moment and i cannot decide which room i should start first with as i would just love do everything at once and have it all ready in a flash. I do realise that it is not realistic though but I absolutely have to share that I feel so super spoiled as I splashed out on the most wonderfull 100% pure Egytian cotton linen for my bed. I have decided that my bedroom's theme with be chocolate and vanilla and the to go with that I will have deep Imbuya wood side tables, oyster coloured bed linen with dark chocolate brown pillows and trimmings and dark wood accessories in the room.  Baroque cream linen curtains set of with wooden railings and a sand coloured walls. A room of light.

The lounge we added to the house was a storeroom until a week ago, now it looks sligthly better and I went to select colour palets for that room yesterday. I am thinking dark skirtings, the stupid builder put really shitty wood skirtings on and I dont have money to replace it so I think I will just go ahead and paint it a very dark green/bluegreen type colour and then use the same colour palette but a much lighter colour to go for the walls. I think that will really set the tiles of nicely and bring the room out. Then some floating shelves in the same colour as the skirtings to accentuate the darker colours on the walls and break the monotony of that room. I still want to design a wall feature with photos and mirrors down the long side, I just need to understand the spacing of the floating shelves (as we need the packing space rather desperately) in relation to my mural. I should start taking before and after photos for my blog as the metamorphosis is rather exciting to follow.

Circles in the sand

My thoughts seem to turn me in circles all the time, as the company is consttantly growing and developing new products, associated brands and following the opportunities knocking on our door, I seem to be divided between growing the company into a corporate giant with all it's trappings or staying an anonymous persona in the background. I can see glimpses of the politising and maneuvering in our boardroom, things I so despise about human nature. And I have to ask myself whether I am just naive or need to grow up quickly to make the system work for me, or should I rather distance myself from all of it? The problem with distancing one selve from it is that your lack of action will invariably lead to your submission to the problem - this is one very hard lesson I learned in my marriage and I believe it is valuable for all relationships. And what is life if it is not a sequence of relationships with various spheres of people?

Let's party

It was my birthday recently.......and how do i know I am a year older? I tell you what, it happens when you plan an evening of raucous sex and good food and instead of fun, you fall asleep by 8:30, only to wake up in the middle of the night with your mind racing on all the business decisions that needs to be made.

What has happened to me?

Anyway the party we had over the weekend was a lot of fun, even it was a sweltering hot summers day! It was the first party that I have ever hosted for myself and it was at our own little home. I rented some tables, chairs, cutlery and crockery with caribbean umbrellas, all set up in the bottom of our garden/ read untended grassland. John organised greek lamb on the spit with roast potatoes, fresh greek salad and crispy bread rolls. For table decorations I combined greek imagery with fresh food colours and came up with my own eclectic creation. The day was lovely!

Caribbean colours in the highveld

My friends, some of whom I have known all my life

when I think Greek food, I think lemons and brinjals

Our Chef! Love you John, you are just the best

Phew

That was close - my hectic work life frizzled my brain.... resulting in complete password removal. Luckily after a couple of hair raising minutes, in which I realised my primary email address does not exist anymore, I did manage to figure out a way in which to reset my password. Let's hope that will be enough motivation to get back in here more regularly

I know it is late in the day

But life here has been in the supersonic lane for a while now and I just wanted to say

Watching the Soccer World Cup was exhausting work