I love the drive from PE to Knysna… scenic, fairly short and absorbing. The mountains and the sea and the forest all make for a great backdrop to the normal internal mental rumblings of the driving mind! The Jimny and I covered the distance in about 3 and a half hours. Again, never pushing it, just cruising along at the speed limit. I have found however that the Jimny uses more fuel at the most… The jets sets for thin highveld air and the higher octane fuel seem to combine to reduce fuel consumption by around 2 kilometres per litre… very weird!

Marc at The Knysna Heads

Knysna is an awesome place and Marc and I toured around the obvious spots gawking… the lagoon, the Heads, the Waterfront. Had an amazing breakfast at Petit Paine on Friday and some awesome tapas at Tapas in the evening. I was amazed at how being in a smaller town immediately made me feel more relaxed and more like I was on holiday… even though I went to movies and chilled out in PE, being in Knysna just felt like more of a holiday overall… very odd.

In our rovings we also met up with Aldo Kleyn… he of the leatherwork and someone I first met working the Bruma Lake flea market when I was a student! Aldo has the most incredible success story, taking a tiny leather shop to the states and position where he now sells clothes to huge international stars. A photo was non-negotiable!

At Aldo Kleyn Leather Creations

Saturday we hit the Sedgefield market… It has grown a lot since I was last there. The food section remains impressive and I bought a few snacky things and was impressed by the range and depth of selection. The craft section though was pretty much as if someone had moved the Rosebank Roof Market to the sea… pretty uninspiring! It does seem that, the longer a market survives, the more homogenous it becomes!

Then we took a drive back up the N2 past Plett to Bramon Wine estate for lunch. Oh my word, I love this place! Firstly their Sauvignon Blanc sparkling wine is amazing and secondly, their tapas style farm menu for lunch is out of this world. Lastly, eating lunch actually IN the vineyard is something I was amazed to see for the first time… it seems so obvious! Sitting in between the rows of grapes was like having your own private dining booth. Oh, and the two waitresses were efficient, fun and seriously good looking, which rounded it all off nicely!

The Bramon Sauvignon Blanc bubbley!

Sunday morning I was up nice and early to head on down to CT. An interesting mishap where my keys ended up inside the Jimny while it locked itself had me calling out the AA and the Knysna locksmith, but all was sorted painlessly enough (Thanks Conrad) and the 280km to CT undertaken.

More road works and heavy mist meant the drive took 5 and a half hours. But again, the scenery is such that I didn’t really mind. I had Wasabi peanuts and biltong to keep me happy and the iPod back on shuffle so I had a wail of a time!

I will be staying in CT for a day or so before heading out to Stellenbosch and the wine-lands… more wine farm adventures to come!

Tail end of sunset over the Knysna Lagoon

Yes, I know I am supposed to be on holiday, but I hardly ever get to PE (last time was exactly 12 months ago) so when the chance came up, I did in fact do a workshop. And what a cracker it was… 43 people, full of pertinent and perceptive questions… they grilled me for nearly 3 hours.. it was awesome!

43 People at PE Money Trail workshop, awesome!

While in PE I went to a couple of movies: Avengers is great, go see it. Battle shop was, well, pretty much what you’d expect. I t was fun, but nothing to write home about As always it intrigues me prowling around PE. The two years I spent there, finishing high school really changed my life. It was here that I leaned to play guitar and bass, read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and was generally crow-barred out of the “popular, rugby playing” mould that I had fallen into at school. I became a real outsider and learned to love it.

This house is where my best mate Julian Kievit lived (below). Here I learned to play guitar and bass, wrote poetry, read books about reincarnation, astral travel and the illusions of the physical world. This was the time in 1987 and 1988 that the person that I have become truly began to emerge. This is where my mental/spiritual side was given the chance to dominate instead of being held in check by my physical, sporting side. Sure, I was still an athlete and captained the team and wonderful colours, but my life was focussed on music, writing, acting and exploring the intellectual boundaries and limits of my thinking and my beliefs.

The place where many, many things started!

So, 0once the workshop was done, it was time to leave PE, and this morning consisted of a very relaxed 3 hour drive down to Knysna. The Jimny has been a pleasure, really nice on the open road. However, if one drives anything over 125km/h, fuel consumption really gets bad! So I have been a very responsible citizen on all 1500 km’s I have driven so far this holiday in order to conserve fuel.

Am chilling in Knysna for a few days with my good friend Marc. Guitar playing and exploring quite possibly the order of the next few days.

Happy Thursday everyone! If you haven’t already done so, please head on over to www.foryouorsomeonelikeyou.com If you buy a book now, it is 1/3rd cheaper than it will be in the shops from end June AND you get to collect your autographed copy at the official launch party as a special invitee or if you are out of JHB, get it posted to you, signed, as soon as it arrive hot off the press!

Adios!

Jimny the road warrior

The poems in For You Or Someone Like You were all drawn from an 18 month period when Chislett was posting a poem a day on popular social media site, Facebook.  None of the poems published on the site were re-worked or edited in anyway, merely published straight from Chislett’s imagination to Facebook. From nearly over four hundred poems, this collection of 90 was drawn.

A lengthy editing process ensued, involving editorial work initially under the guidance of Andrew Miller and latterly of Rory Bester. The result is a dense collection of modern verse that tackles what it means to be alive in the 21st century in South Africa. Chislett’s poetry is dense, tense and image rich. In contrast to his visual prose style, the poems are often lean, short affairs that punch straight to the heart with simple emotive power.

In a unique promotional move, 20yearsentence has created an early-bird special discount offer on the book and a range of customised options. South African readers have the opportunity to buy the book BEFORE it is launched at special prices as follows:

Once-off pre-order sale:                                            R80.00
Order book and limited edition audio disc        R120.00
Pre-order now and collect your book at the official launches in JHB and CT. If you are outside of these centres, receive your book in the post.
Dinner offer                                                                    R1 500.00
Coaching offer                                                              R2 500.00
Performance offer                                                       R5 000.00
For full details, click here now!

Once launched, Chislett will be touring the book with an accompanying Spoken Word/Story Telling live show where he will perform some of the work, both musically and vocally and tell the story of his journey from beginning to write until publishing this book.

About The Author
David Chislett is better known as a prose and non-fiction writer thanks to his previous publishing record. In 2001 he created the Urban Series of short fiction which ran to 3 volumes. In 2009 he published A Body Remembered, a collection of short stories. In 20120 he published 1,2,1,2: A Step By Step Guide To The SA Music Industry. Chislett has grown up as a writer in the South African entertainment business. He has worked as a print and online journalist, TV script writer (he was the script writer on the SAFTA award winning Jam Sandwich 2011 season), Radio and film as well as publishing and music. He is well known as a speaker and trainer, facilitating corporate work and public facing education initiatives aimed at artists. He lives in Linden, Johannesburg and is currently writing a novel.

Book info
For You Or Someone Like You• ISBN: 978-0-620-51116-2•Soft-cover•Portrait: 148 x 210 mm•98pages
Retail price: R120.00
www.foryouorsomeonelikeyou.com

Bookshop and trade queries:
Owen Early
Stephan Phillips Distributors
owen@stephanphillips.com

Just as it was getting to around sunrise, I hit heavy fog, somewhere near Kroonstad. It was like driving through a tunnel. The intense sensory deprivation made me feel sometimes like I was driving along roller coaster tracks, diving and twisting up and down and around. I slowed. Even the guy in the huge Pajero slowed… we time travelled through space… The rising sun soon dissipated the fog to reveal that I was nearly in Bloem and doing well!

The KroonVaal Tol Plaza swathed in fog!

A road trip in South Africa doesn’t seem to be complete without road-works. I was doing great until Colesberg. From there, I turned off the N1 to take the N1 to PE…. road-works all the way to Cradock, and beyond. Sitting still in a queue of cars in the desert is always a unique and incongruous way to pass time.

The Riveting view while waiting your turn in roadworks queue

Can anyone tell me how shuffle on an iPod actually works? I’ve hear the theories about BPM and algorithms and shit. But really? It’s tried to play several songs repeatedly, and neglected to play stuff I know is on there and also played songs I know and like and select manually a lot. It was on for 12 hours, you’d think I heard 12 hours worth of different music and bands. No. My iPod has a love affair with Joy Division, Radio Head and Pink Floyd. I skip most of them. I am considering removing some of it from the device!

The trip to PE was more like a precision engagement than a road trip. I stopped only for fuel, loo breaks and road works. From here onwards I shall dawdle more and take more pictures. I am in PE for 3 days. I intend to go to the movies, work on my novel, play my guitar and run down by the beach. I’ll send you some pictures and write about that too. Today’s to do list includes The Avengers. All of you who have seen it better be right! I am in the mood for a GOOD dose of escapism!

Happy Monday everyone!

And here we are in the Karoo... somewhere!

I am off down the garden route to Cape Town for a 2 week escape. I’ll take some pretty pictures while I am gone to keep you entertained tho, never fear! The idea is to drive a bit every couple of days and end up in the wine lands taking it slow.

I will be doing some work along the way though, including a workshop in PE for musicians with the N_mb City project drew(check it out on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/268911949872220/ ). But mainly I will be working on the novel and also working on turning some of my poems into little songs for a new project I am going to be launching shortly.

This will be the first proper holiday I have had since I flew to London for Christmas more than 2 years ago. I am really looking forward to it. Once I am back I will then be heading to Swaziland and the Bushfire festival to do a day long workshop there, and then I am working at the Grand Designs Expo again this year as the face of the House Of The Future.

A contrasting few weeks ahead. They in turn are in stark contrast to the previous few weeks of being shackled to my desk and laptop meeting a hectic deadline. I need the break and am feeling very worn out and tired!

But the good news is that there are amazing things afoot, so watch this space for details!

Happy Friday!