December and January, and for all intents and purposes, February, seem to have passed by in blur of business. From my side I keep hearing about other writers having retainers and budgets cut, but find myself busier than ever – and wondering why - but I am pleased to know that there are a few writers in my circles who are also tremendously busy.
Interestingly, the demand is not just on the writing side. We’re running trial t’ai chi classes once a week for a month at an art school in town – and if it is well received, which it seems to be so far, then it will be on-going. And the MRC has also asked for classes, possibly twice a week.
Bob went through a long period of frustration with an injured knee – but the knee functionality and his sense of humour seem to be returning. Bob is also tremendously busy teaching security guard training in the mornings and self-protection for women at MCS at lunch times.
I’m currently in Zambia at the tail end of a course for business editors and senior journalists from 17 African countries, and Bob is off to Johannesburg next week for security guard training up there from Monday to Thursday.
We are also in the process of selling Hombu – and a lot of paraphernalia – with the view to being free from bondages and look for the next place to centre our lives around for a while.
It is a slow process, and quite amazing looking at the things one accumulates but doesn’t really need, or even use. It is an interesting process to pare down to the bare essentials – well it’s not quite there, but it’s starting to feel like the bare essentials, relatively speaking.
We stopped feeding the kites probably about two months ago when it appeared that new kites had moved in and were ‘demanding’ food (as opposed to our original guest who asked politely), and it seemed like the start of food wars.
We moved the feeding table away – and it was accepted with grace – and we still have the kites visiting. The original quiet one sits on the branch and suns herself with wings out-stretched every morning.
We suspect that the noisy one might be our original one’s off-spring, judging by behaviour, but it does not look small or particularly juvenile, so I’m not sure about that.
My work on the Agenda journal is finally getting to the exciting stage of taking shape and getting ready for print. It’s been a long, slow and pretty unprofessional process to get it thus far and I’m hoping that the rest goes smoothly.
One last word about the global financial crisis – it is going to hit Africa and it is going to hit Africa hard, not through the banking sector as it did with the first-round effects, but through the back door, affecting exports and as a result income and jobs – which in turn will affect domestic sales and income.
If you’re not taking steps to save money wherever you can, I suggest you do. Reduce your debt, cut back on frills and start focussing on necessities, plant a veg garden … whatever you do – don’t bury your head in the sand and pretend it is business as normal.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 04 August 2009 )
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