A non-work weekend

For the past six months I've done little else but work, run with Rusty and enjoy odd social interactions. This weekend, I have not turned my computer on once to work. It has been a much-needed break.

What did I do instead?

While I would have loved to sleep until 10 on Saturday morning, I was up before the crack of dawn as it was my turn to be Run Director at our Parys parkrun. We've got a really great community here so despite the cold, early morning, it is fun being out there.

Back home I processed results and then found a comfy spot on our stoep to read. I finished the current book (The Roanoke Girls) and started the next (We are completely beside ourselves).

Then Rusty and I went to visit her friends Skally and Rocksy at Otters Haunt, one of our favorite places to run, put our kayaks on to the river and just to hang out. I can totally recommend it as a life-is-simple close-to-joburg getaway. 

Ruben came with me and we enjoyed walking on the island, skipping stones and walking through through the forest. The dogs just love it (us too).

Even though I'd taken Rusty out in the afternoon, after 4pm is her regular run time so I had to take her out for a walkies then too. I babysat my mom's dog so Tansy was with us for the walk around a couple of blocks.

Dins was soup and Asian-style steamed buns and then some comedy watching on Netflix (I'm new to the service and still in the trial month - enjoying the variety so far).

Sunday morning started slow. I headed to my mom's house to bake rusks. Every few weeks I bake a big batch - about 4kg! Better than anything you can buy - and significantly more cost effective. While the rusks were in the oven we popped through to our paddle club to hang with friends who were there to braai and enjoy the warm, sunny day.

Back at my mom's house we got the rusks out and I mended Celliers' pants, put up a hem on mine, caught up with friends on the phone and got the rusks back in on a low heat to dry.

I was back home briefly to change before heading out with Rusty for a run across town. Friends are coming back to Parys next month and I'm helping them find a place to rent. I had to addresses to check out - just from the outside as the tenants won't let me in to look until next weekend (days before they are moving out - really inconsiderate). The one place looks really good.

Back home. Cook, shower and chill. We're having a braai tonight.

I want to sink into my book later and maybe something short on Netflix.

And that's the weekend gone. A good weekend.

I'm up for an exciting week ahead as our seafreight arrives and by the end of the week we'll have three (and maybe more) models of our Vagabond kayaks in production. 

Here's to another week that is full of adventure. Hooray! 

Letting the cat out of the bag - Vagabond Kayaks

Yes, yes, yes! I can finally tell you.

We launched our new kayak company yesterday - Vagabond Kayaks. What an adventure this has been already and the real adventure actually begins now.

Celliers and I have been working towards creating Vagabond Kayaks for a long time - at first only just in our minds and dreams. His passion is kayaking and kayak design. There is a good reason that he is regarded as one of the best kayak designers in the world. Aside from 16 years of designing and manufacturing kayaks, Celliers has been paddling and in the community and industry for over 20 years.

He has been under a restraint-of-trade for three years, which has been very trying for us. He was restricted from having anything to do with paddling locally and internationally - yes, that means he couldn't even design a boat for another company or get a job elsewhere. We couldn't even make paddles in our garage to sell.

Imagine a doctor that cannot have anything to do with medicine for three years, not even being a pharmaceutical rep; or a media person that may not send an email, write an article or go on social media for three years.

We started YOLO - making compost tumblers - as a new business 18 months ago. I am passionate about recycling and working towards ZeroWaste and we needed a composting solution at home. I'm now compost obsessed and I love my company and interacting with our like-minded customers. Businesses take a while to get off the ground, especially when you're in completely new territory, in an industry that is unfamiliar to both of us. The past years have been challenging.

I've been very quiet with blog writing mostly because I've barely had enough time to sneeze and I've been writing a ton of content for our Vagabond Kayaks website. I'm also our website designer and this has been the biggest and most complicated website that I have ever built. I'm no computer programmer; just a self-taught, old-school website designer with the ability to read help files, code HTML and tweak php. I've been stretched!

We also have a bunch of images and graphics on the site, which I created. Celliers' beautiful CAD renderings of each kayak at various angles have had our logos added to them, manually, by me. My mouse hand is exhausted!

Our website is www.vagabondkayaks.com and we're on Facebook (vagabondkayaks) and Instagram (vagabondkayaks). Like-Like-Like, Love-Love-Love, Share-Share-Share.

Picnic on the other side of the Vaal River - this lovely spot accessed by paddling our Vagabond kayaks. Home-baked bread, fig jam and dog treats (although Rusty wanted bread and jam too).

As for our kayaks... They are beautiful!

Rusty and I on the Kasai; Ruben and Kyla on their children's kayaks (like a scaled-down version of mine), the Kwando.

I've paddled the Kasai (great all-purpose sit-on-top with good speed) and the Tsomo (shorter, more playful) and prototypes of the Dumbi (surf kayak), Vubu (whitewater kayak; the smaller Pungwe will be my whitewater kayak) and the Usutu (whitewater sit-on-top). Rusty likes the Kasai the best so far.

Rusty is very comfy in the back of the Kasai. She likes to lie down too.

I am most looking forward to paddling the Marimba, which will be the fastest in our fleet. I had only one request for Celliers' design: make sure there is enough space for Rusty. While most of these kayaks will be available in the next two weeks or so, the Marimba will be our last one and only in production by October.

We have had a superb response from friends, family and the paddling community since we put the site online not much more than 36-hours ago. Celliers and I are pleasantly drowning in support and well wishes.

We have awesome partners in this business (all paddlers too) and we look forward to having them more involved in the day-to-day activities as we transition to production.

Celliers and I are recovering from extreme lack of sleep the past two weeks (especially the last five days!) and we still have so much work to do. For now, we continue to build this amazing company.

I left Rusty running around on these rocks when I swapped to paddle the Tsomo. She watched me for a bit and then climbed into 'her' tankwell on 'her' Kasai. Ruben was on this side so he climbed on and paddled her to me.

42 Days of Running - done

This year, my annual pre-birthday game of running every-day-for-the-consecutive-number-of-days-of the-age-that-I'm-turning, passed quickly and in a bit of a blur. This past Monday marked my 42nd birthday.

It was definitely less 'impactful' than in previous years. With Rusty in my life I have achieved more of a balance that what I had in my late 30s and in the first year of my move to Parys. Come sun, rain or hail, I take Rusty out every day for a run or long walk or combination thereof (depending on what we did the day before). It's good for her and has been very good for me. I find it easier to commit to going good for someone else rather than for myself...

I did do a few more longer runs over the past 42 days than I had been doing. My body has always loved distance and I should 'feed' it more often.

Right now I'm down with a nasty cough and cold. Timing is never good for any cold but I'm a bit peeved because Rusty and I have been running so well. This week I've been reduced to long walks as my body fights the infection.

Walking on the nearby golf estate. This bridge is lovely but the metal grid is not at all dog friendly. I'm carrying 21kg of love. Must say, I do delight in carrying her because it is the only chance I get to give her a full-body cuddle.

That's the end of this year's birthday game. Until next year's '43 Days of Running'.

Hazel is running Ten10 again

On Sunday afternoon I enjoyed the special opportunity to run bit less than 20km with Hazel on Day 3 of her Ten10 challenge.

This is Hazel's 5th year of running 10 x Comrades distances (90km/day) from JHB to Maritzburg, with the 10th being Comrades itself. She started running on Friday and yesterday, Day 3, ran to Parys. Karen and I went out to meet her on the road, running with her to the day's finish.

Hazel, Karen and me. Photo taken while running!

Also running this year is Cornel. This is her first Ten10 and she is running incredibly well. She seems to have a natural knack for distance.

Hazel has been involved with animal shelters, having rescued a good many dogs while out on runs. She has provided homes for some, found homes for others, rushed to vets and raised funds for sterilisation programmes and to assist shelters with food.

While we were running yesterday she told me about a runner that she met recently who, while he was out on a run, saw a puppy being chased and stoned. The puppy appeared to have deformed front legs and it was being abused by a group of men. He rescued the puppy and has adopted it. As it turns out, the issue with its legs were purely due to malnutrition, which corrected within two weeks. When he saw the puppy being abused, the guy asked himself, "What would Hazel do?". He has named the puppy Hazel.

And then last week she got a call from a running friend to say that children were abusing kittens that had been born to a feral cat near a block of flats. Hazel dropped her girls off at school and got there about 45 minutes later. Apparently a 10 year old boy has smashed in the face of one kitten and was in the process of skinning it when he was stopped. Other children were looking on. Another kitten had been hung by its scruff on a barbed wire fence. Hazel says fortunately she did not see the state of the first kitten - the police had been called to intervene. When she is done with this challenge she will address this issue with the children's school and work with them to teach children about animal welfare.

Hazel is one of the bravest, strongest and most capable women I know.

You can donate to the shelters that Hazel has nominated through the Ten10 website. Or you can do your own thing by donating to your local shelter or by dropping off dog/cat food for the animals that they protect.

And, if you have the capacity, consider being a forever home to a shelter animal.

And, sterilise your animals. Neither you nor they need to have puppies or kittens. Shelters are overflowing.

Follow Hazel and Cornel on their journey and if you're in the area where they are, catch them on the road and give them a cheer or run a few kilometres with them. You can follow their movements on live tracking at trackrace.tk/ten10_2018