Travel: Family Time At Tsitsikamma

Apr 11, 2017 |

Most Friday mornings, the house is filled with alarms, water running, crying and grumbling, and a stern voice shouting for children to bath, brush their teeth, have their breakfasts and get ready to leave for school. This Friday morning, however, there was a very different energy, one that you could almost reach out a pat it gently. There was still a voice shouting that children must get ready but, this time, it wasn’t for school but rather to catch a flight to Port Elizabeth and then a drive to South African National Parks' Tsitsikamma National Park. Growing up, we were ‘forced’ to take...

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Make Life Count

Nov 16, 2015 |

Sleeping in on weekends ended the day my son was born. At eight years old, now, he drags himself out of bed from Monday to Friday, sometimes trying to get an extra ten minutes by crawling beneath the blankets in my bed when he comes to say good morning. On Saturdays and Sundays however, he’s been known to get up at 05:30/06:00 to start his day, and often wants company. When I asked him why he wakes so early on weekends, his response was simple and, uncomfortably logical: “weekends are my days and so I want more time to do the things I like, which is why I wake up earlier.” As they say, kids...

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Win Luggage Worth R11,000 With Club Med

Sep 3, 2014 |

Last year, I went on a rare holiday with my family to Club Med’s La Plantation D’Albion resort in Mauritius. Since that trip, my kids have been hounding me regularly to find out when we are doing a Club Med holiday again and where we are going to next – I’m thinking Bali or China. We did a week last year and are thinking 14 days of doing absolutely nothing might be the better way to go. It took two days for my mind to recognise that we were on holiday and what it meant. This week, Club Med is running a competition in South Africa in which the prize is Samsonite luggage worth R11,000. Having...

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Random Thoughts: The Future of Holidaying

Aug 15, 2013 | ,

When I was in my teens and in university, my father always insisted on family holidays, particularly around Christmas. We would pile into the car and head to Swaziland, Durban or East London or something. Before that, I generally spent my Christmas holidays in Germany with relatives in addition to one year in the US for about three weeks. Travel is a wonderful thing. It puts life into perspective. In the last two years, I’ve been fortunate enough to get a great deal of perspective, travelling regularly for work even though, at times, it has often been for only a couple of days in each place...

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