Practicing reinvention

“One thing I’ve learned in my brief career: It’s the side projects that really take off. By side projects I mean the stuff that you thought was just messing around. Stuff that’s just play. That’s actually the good stuff. That’s when the magic happens.”

Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon 

Floor plans My English ancestors sailed on the HMS Weymouth from Portsmouth to Algoa Bay in 1820. They were from Burton-in-Kendal, Evlestoke and Guildford. An out of work labourer, a weaver, a wife. It took them 6 months to get there. Their hope: to reinvent themselves in a new country.

Many births, deaths and marriages later, I turned up.

I had a privileged, colonial upbringing. Good schools. Good manners. Good books. My English accent was corrected by my maternal grandmother. Summers were spent at the sea, winters in the game reserve.

Mother England I’m sure, was proud of her colonial child.

Ah, the colonial life (you might say) … wide open spaces, sun, land and opportunity!

True. But. Continue reading Practicing reinvention

Small things matter

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Dr SeussWhen my siblings and I were small, one of our favourite bedtime stories was The Teeny-Tiny Woman.

Once upon a time there was a teeny-tiny woman. She lived all alone in a teeny-tiny house. Her teeny-tiny house sat on the teeny-tiny edge of a big swamp. The teeny-tiny woman loved her teeny-tiny house. One day, the teeny-tiny woman decided to go for a teeny-tiny walk. She put on her teeny-tiny scarf and her teeny-tiny shawl…Continue reading Small things matter