And with a bang the new year has begun

What a first week of 2018! I have not yet had a chance to reflect on 2017 as I'm deeply immersed in 2018 already.

I've had a really great week on the work side. Our YOLO Compost Tumblers were listed on Takealot.com on 15 December. Our timing was really late for the xmas shoppers as a result of a bunch of supplier-side delays for components and then time to build the needed stock... It happened and the process with Takealot has been superb from the start.

I thought that I'd get a notification when sales went through so that I'd be alerted to replace the stock. Come 1 Jan I thought that we had not had any sales, despite receiving a number of direct orders. I didn't think this unusual as it is the holidays and I suspected we'd only see sales in late January.

On Tuesday morning I checked my seller portal: 3 sales before 31 Dec and one that morning! I sent off two boxes on Wednesday and one on Thursday to replace stock. How very exciting!

At the same time my phone and email were pinging with direct orders. The boxes I sent on Wednesday were delivered on Thursday morning and the one was dispatched to a customer by Takealot by noon the same day!

The stock we built up before the start of the holidays is almost completely depleted and so we're moulding again. I've got two orders on standby for the one colour combination. Our plastic supplier opens on Monday and we're hoping that he has stock of the colour that we need. We stockpiled plastic before xmas but are out of just this one colour!

It seems that many New Year's Resolutions are waste / recycling / composting related. Nice!

Celliers' friend came to visit for a night this week. I took him with me to Otters Haunt to enjoy some river scenery. Rusty always loves it there.

Rusty loves visiting Otters Haunt, which we do at least once a week. Whether we walk on the island (as in this photo, on the section of winding trails or for a longer run in good company with our friends Karen, Rocksy and Skally (the latter two being border collies), she just loves every visit (I do too!). She appreciates the scenery too. Otters is the most divine, dog-friendly place to stay for a weekend getaway and only 5 mins from town.

It has been swelteringly hot so my running was been downscaled this week to longer walks with Rusty. She was a hot dog this morning at parkrun. She did the first kilometre to the turnaround marshal and a big tree. I was planning to just take her on one loop but she plonked down in the shade of the big tree and definitely didn't seem keen to continue. I lopped her lead around the post and the marshal, John, kept and eye on her. I ran the two loops (stopping to give her kisses after the first loop) and then we ran together for the one kilometre to the finish.

I haven't run with my morning group the past two weeks. I'm going to aim to join them for at least one morning a week at 6am. I'm back into my late-night working mode, which is not very useful for waking up early. One morning I can do.

Trippin' the Vaal again

When the sky is blue with not a cloud in sight and friends say, "Do you want to trip?" there is only one response, "Yes!". And so we tripped the river again on Sunday - I think our 4th for the week. This time I remembered to take along a camera.

The river has been at a really great level for about two days - not as rocky as it was on Friday. Ruben and Kyla both had a small swim each; no swimming for me. Celliers took the photos.

Celliers is out on the river again this afternoon. I skipped to snooze on the couch after being up since 05h30 to go parkrunning!

Saturday evening - taking my mom out for her first time on a sit-on-top whitewater kayak. We stuck to flat water to get the feel for the kayak.

Me and my mom.

Ruben showing us how it is done.

Kyla taking a good line.

Me.

Graeme Addison - even after decades of kayaking, rafting and expeditioning, he still loves rivers. If you visit Parys and want to go rafting, look no further than Riverman. Graeme also offers fabulous trips on the Orange River. 

Corran Addison and his 3-year old son Kailix in his Soul double kayak. Kailix has a neat splash screen. Mom Christine is in the background.

What a beautiful day! Ruben, Kyla and me with Karen and Cameron in the background (Celliers took all of the photos).

New Year's Day parkrun double

Our Parys parkrun was again part of a 'New Year's Day double' with Potchefstroom parkrun and the new Meyerton parkrun. Potch and Meyerton started at 07h00 to give participants enough time to run or walk their courses and to get through to Parys for our 09h00 start.

I set off for Potch at 6am with Louis and Karen, fellow Parys Run Directors, as well as Ruben, Celliers' son. Something started clicking for him a few months ago and he is really getting into his mountain biking, kayaking and parkrunning. Despite a late night, Ruben was keen to come through to Potch as he has only ever done our Parys parkrun. He unfortunately couldn't make the double as he needed to get through to his mom's house - they have all left for a few days away.

Before the Potch start we took a photo with a number of our Parys regulars. 

Ruben and I ran together. He enjoyed being at Potch parkrun and we decided that we need to get Celliers and Kyla to join us for a parkrun here.

It looked like Ruben was the only child participating at Potch parkrun this morning - he was very chuffed with this observation. With Potch completed, we headed back to Parys. I dropped off Ruben at home, said bye to the children and took Rusty and my camera to our parkrun. 

We had a record number of participants today - around 193! At the finish Louis even had to scratch in our parkrun box for the tokens from 150 on (we don't usually need to use them!). It was cooking hot out there but still the participants were full of smiles. Lots of parkrun Tourists as well as those doing the New Year's double bolstered our numbers. It was a colourful and friendly morning.

Going into 2018... I should reach my 100 parkrun milestone. As Rusty is on the mend after her toe injury I'll be getting her back up to fitness and aiming to get her faster than me. I look forward to setting a new PB with her. Two weeks ago I ran my fastest time for 2017 (without her). My actual PB was set on our old course, which was about 300m shorter. I'd like to better it.

Hip-hip-hooray to all of you.

'Tis the season for kayaking

The Vaal River has been up and down like a jack-in-the-box. 100 cumec one day, 40 cumec the next... High water or low water, we've been on the river. Tripping with kids and other people, car shuttles... it takes time so you need a few hours at a time to go play. Celliers can't remember being on the river this much since many years ago.

For the past three months I've been paddling a sit-on-top whitewater kayak. In November two years ago, Celliers taught me to roll a sit-in whitewater kayak. I had one session on the river a week later and then we had very, very low water for the rest of the summer. Last year we didn't paddle much.

Sit-on top whitewater kayaks have a lot going for them. If you fall out, you just climb back on. Easy-peasy. They're a great way to build confidence, learn skills, practice skills like ferry gliding, attainment (paddling upriver using eddies), edging and also surfing in rapids.

The big downside to sit-in kayaks is that if you fall over and pop out, then you have to swim to the side with your kayak full of water (at this stage it floats just below the surface), drag it out to empty it, get back in etc. This whole process can be quite exhausting and it wastes a lot of time. To paddle a sit-in, I totally recommend that you spend time on a sit-on-top, learn to roll a sit-in and then start tripping. You'll just enjoy it more.

Last Saturday we went to Gatsien, a great rapid with a good wave (at the right level), numerous eddies, the chute and options. Celliers worked with me on eddy-catching, ferrying and edging.

We had a friend visiting this week and so we took him down the river on Wednesday. He has paddled a little in the past but not for a long time. We put him on my sit-on-top and we dusted off my sit-in. It was time for me to put my skills to the test. The river was up at around 150 cumec. I had an excellent runs with no swims. Not even a wobble!

Ruben and Kyla and our friend Marinus took big swims going through Theatre, a lovely long rapid with great wave trains above Gatsien. I saw both Kyla and then Marinus go over - in the same place. They were ahead of me. I figured that Marinus could take care of himself so I paddled for Kyla. Celliers had turned to see her swimming but he hadn't seen Ruben go over a bit more downstream. Celliers went to help Kyla, I went to help Ruben - collecting Kyla's new river shoes, which had popped off her feet, in the big waves on the way to Ruben. It was quite exciting. As Celliers later said, "I was so relieved to see that you were not swimming too!". The kids had a bit of a shock - their longest and biggest swim ever. But they handled it well and after a few tears were back on their sit-on tops (same as mine, just smaller sizes) and paddling towards the take out. They rarely swim. The learning experience that came out of this for them is that you can NEVER become complacent on water. NEVER.

Yesterday we were all back on the river - it was really low at maybe 30-40 cumec. I practiced some rolls at the start and later too. I nailed them 100% of the time, improving my technique with each roll. I still have more practice to do until rolling becomes second nature. This was on flat water, which is much easier than rolling in current.

I had an excellent run with good lines. And then I swam at the bottom of the chute at Gatsien. I really shouldn't have fallen over. It was silly. Whatever. I fell over and found myself upsidedown in an awkward position, only one hand on my paddle (I need both hands on it to roll). I did a half-roll but realised I was really in a wonky position. I popped my spray skirt and swam, dragging my paddle and water-laden kayak to a nearby rock.

Fortunately there is this great rock shelf in the middle of river so I huffed and heaved and hauled my kayak up there to empty it. It is such a waste of time and energy to swim! I got back on the river above the rapid to run it again. Easy-peasy.

My rolls are looking good but my rolls in current need work. I aim to be back on the river later today to play at Gatsien. My objective is to capsize myself in the rapid so that I can practice rolling in the current. Again and again and again.

I'll ask Celliers to take some photos. It really is lovely out here on the river.