I have two big fears in life. Fear 1: Not getting to the buffet table in time Yes it’s a privileged fear. It’s also irrational, because there’s usually plenty of the good stuff. It’s just that those moments of standing in the queue, waiting for the person in front of...

No Excuses. That’s the line on my running partner’s What’s App profile. Which makes thinking of a reason to pull out of a 5am morning run impossible. Or at best, awkward. Rather than face her raised eyebrow, most of the time it’s easier to just get up and run. It’s...

Growing up in peri-urban suburbia, the neighbour behind us was a man called Vasco. My father, trying to tame the patch of veld we called a garden, was often outside, spade in hand, chatting to whichever of our neighbours happened to be in their gardens. My dad wasn’t...

The first time I considered self-care as an option was in a workshop about hormones. Hot flushes, uncontrollable peevishness and a refusal to pop a pill to fix it, saw me sitting in a room of 30 or 40 other middle-aged women, with pretty much the same haggard look and...

1.     Take responsibility 2.     Dig deeper 3.     Pick just one thing (to do) today 4.     Get into nature 5.     Seek the truth 6.     Tell the truth 7.     Phone a friend 8.     Go to plan B 9.     Stay positive 10.  Meditate 11.  Exercise 12.  Uphold your values...

Raise your hand if you’ve ever wanted to be inspiring. Even just a little bit. Sometimes we’re fooled into thinking only ‘great’ people can inspire, whatever great means to you. I dug around and found out that inspiring someone, like having charisma, is totally...