It’s been a while since I posted here and I’d usually apologise but as a new mum, an entrepreneur and a world traveller, I hope most of you will understand why this blog has had to take a backseat for a while.

However, I’m back with this (rather long) post and hopefully in the new year a few more with a bit of an experiment to come…

But for now, this post is for friends out there who (like I was) are on the fence about having kids…and no it’s not going to be one of those “kids are the best thing that could happen to you” type posts but a realistic view from someone who’s been on both sides of that fence…

So, the Munchkin is now 5 months old and we’re back on the road, currently in Thailand.

How’s parenthood treating us?

It’s wonderful, amazing, spectacular and all those things you hear uttered by parents everywhere about their precious little darlings. Mali is the light of our lives, truly.

Every cliché holds true about parenthood – it makes you see things in a different light, it gives you a new sense of purpose in life and you understand now why even the tiniest of developments makes you glow with joy and want to tell the whole world. But it is not all roses and chocolate…I’m coming to the other side in a bit!

For now though, here is a short list of “things I realise now that I’m a mother”:

1. Why new parents bore the pants off everyone else with their “Guess what baby Jo did today? He rolled on to his side & sprayed drool all over himself”-type conversations.
   - Watching the development of this tiny little thing as they learn more and more about their own bodies and the world around them is a privilege. It is fascinating and I will never grow tired of it.
2. Why you see babies with bits of sleep in their eyes, snot on their faces and other bits of stuff which hasn’t been wiped off. Are their parents just lazy?
   - When you know your baby will have a meltdown if you go within 1cm of their nose, you can live with the dried snot stuck there! And have you tried getting something out of the corner of a tiny eye without poking it & again, making the baby cry?!
3. Why there’s an endless fascination with baby’s bowel movements & nappy habits. Surely there’s something more interesting to focus on?
   - It’s a really good sign of health & that everything’s working when your baby is “regular”. Yup, we even charted every poo & wee for the first few weeks of Mali’s life and still do now that we’re weaning her on to solids.

So have I now “turned” into one of those doting, “this is the best thing that has ever happened to me” type people?

Um. No. Definitely not. While Mali is the light of my life, I remember talking to a friend of mine (a mother herself) a few months before we found out I was pregnant and I totally agree with her assessment of motherhood… she said:

Now I know my child I’d never want to be without them, but if I knew then what I know now about being a parent and raising a child, I might not have chosen this.

And I have to say that I know *exactly* what she means. I would NEVER want to be without Mali now we have her, and it’s not like she was planned either – but knowing what I do now about what it is to be a parent (and we were pretty realistic to begin with – which is why we’d practically decided we didn’t want to have children!) I’d have to think very hard about doing it again, if I had to do it all over again.

Parenthood is hard.

It’s not so much the recovery from an unexpected c-section, the sleepless nights or the additional costs. It’s about the responsibility, the umpteen choices & options and the decision-making.

I distinctly remember saying to Jonathan about a week after Mali was born “I want my old life back”. It’s a huge adjustment – one that so many people underestimate and the responsibility you have is huge.

As you might expect, we’ve chosen to go a different path on a number of things with Mali. A good example is her vaccination schedule – we’re not following the NHS route but instead have researched an alternative path & schedule. Have we done the best thing for her? We think (hope) so but you just never know. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Running a business & parenthood is really hard.

We knew that having a baby was going to be tiring. But we’d (naively) hoped that we’d have the kind of baby who would nap for hours on end, go to sleep without fuss and that we’d have a few hours every day to run our business.

Hmmm, it didn’t exactly work out like that. Mali has never been a great napper (she still only naps for 30m at a time) and while she’s now in a pretty good sleep routine, until she was about 14 weeks, it was a nightmare.

The only time we had to work on our business was when Mali went to sleep – and that wouldn’t often happen till about 10.30/11pm. These days, at a more sensible 7pm, we still get a good few hours to work and get to bed at a reasonable hour. But it’s still not ideal.

Travelling, running a business & parenthood is really, really hard.

We don’t do things by halves and we’ve now resumed our nomadic lifestyle. We honestly weren’t sure how we’d feel about this and whether we’d even want to once Mali came along but we’re back on the road, baby in tow and having a ball.

But again it’s hard. There are so many more things to consider, so many more things to research and so much more to fit in. We’ve got a pretty good schedule going these days where we spend the day with Mali, get her to bed then work in the evenings. It’s going well but we’re still chasing our tails at the moment. That’ll change soon. I hope.

So, would I recommend parenthood?

In a heartbeat if that’s what you know you want. I’ve always believed parenthood these days is an inherently selfish thing – nobody thinks “I’m going to bring a child into this world because the world needs it”. People have children because they want them. We’d decided we didn’t but then we had one. And we feel privileged and blessed to have been able to do so.

But if you have a choice and you’re on the fence about it, take it from me – it’s fantastic but if your life feels complete without children (like mine did), don’t let anyone pressure you into having them with their “it’s the best thing that’ll ever happen to you” spiel.

It’s rewarding, it’s thrilling, it’s fascinating. It’s hard work. It can be an uphill struggle and it’s exhausting. But then so is travel or charity work or running your own business.

Once we’d found out about the baby and realised that for a number of reasons, coming back to the UK for the birth was the grown-up thing to do, I’ve been dreading it and trying to come up with last-minute escape plans.

Now we’re here though, it’s really ok (note, that “ok” is not “fantastic” but it’s certainly not “dreadful”!)…A large part of the being ok has to do with the fact that we couldn’t wait to get out of Dubai. As nice as it was staying in my brother’s pretty swanky pad, we started to dislike quite a few things about the place including:

• Ridiculous cost of living – who can afford to pay £30 ($50) for a whole, organic chicken?
• Dry, arid air and permanent air-conditioning everywhere
• Lack of green spaces, nature & places to walk without being choked by traffic

Being in the UK however, we’re enjoying:

• Organic everything at prices we can even afford
• Fast, stable internet even without BT’s “help”
• Not having to think about, research or plan where we’re going to next (for a while, at least)
• Being surrounded by all our books again

Despite the recession, gloomy outlook and record job losses, people in the UK don’t have it all that bad – everything’s relative.

A Starbuck’s hot chocolate on the beach is the only way to enjoy Christmas in Dubai :)

We go to Thailand and around 600 miles away one of the worst tropical cyclones in recent history hits Burma; we fly to HK and just a few days before a massive earthquake hits China; we’re about to go to South Africa for 6 months and violent xenophobic attacks erupt around the country. I suppose that’s more preferable than being in a place and a bomb explodes nearby – which seems to happen every time my brother takes a trip.

But as you might imagine, we’ve been keeping a close eye on events in South Africa recently – even more so once it occurred to me that I look more like an immigrant – albeit of Asian and not African origin – than say, Jonathan does. And people keep asking us whether it’s safe, whether we’ll be ok and why we’re still going, so I thought I’d post about it…

[On a side note, I have rarely ever noticed that I am actually 'brown' whilst growing up in the UK and yet it's something I'm far more aware of as a LIP for some reason]

So why are we going?

Largely because I’m going to be working part-time there as a management consultant for some friends who’ve just started their own consulting business out there. With our flexibility and the fact we were planning to go back some time later this year anyway, it’s not a major hassle for us to go a couple of months earlier, refresh my consulting skills and help out our friends at the same time.

Will we be safe?

I certainly hope so!! Despite the horrendous crime record in South Africa, we spent 3 months there previously with only a minor brush with crime and feel that as long as we’re street savvy and smart about what we do and when we do it, we can minimise the chances of anything nasty happening.

However, with the recent xenophobic attacks against immigrants and foreigners (not tourists – but largely African immigrants), we’re obviously going to be super-vigilant and aware of our safety. Fortunately for the first month or so, we’ll be tucked away in a small town on the Garden Route before heading to Cape Town afterwards.

How do we feel about South Africa in general?

Since our first stay in South Africa, we have always had the following response when asked what we think about SA as a country: The country is stunning, the cost of living (for us) is cheap but there are still problems with racism which we saw quite clearly even in the younger generations; there is a certain intolerance, arrogance and aggressiveness about the people (black and white) which we’ve not seen anywhere else and the crime problems make us think twice about choosing to settle there more permanently.

What do we think about the attacks?

And as for the attacks – despite the initial denial that these were xenophobic in nature, it’s obviously a root cause. Conditions for many black South Africans are poor, jobs are scarce and whilst to an outsider visiting cities like Cape Town, South Africa may seem to be a nation that has rich resources and is thriving, there are some major underlying problems with poverty, unemployment and inequality still causing resentment, tension and violence.

It doesn’t surprise me that academic studies have long shown South Africans to be among the most intolerant people in the world – and these attacks are another demonstration of this intolerance.

But here’s the important thing…

We count ourselves hugely fortunate to even have this choice of where we go. The thousands of immigrants who’ve had their lives destroyed by these attacks have no choice – or at least the choice they do have is between the lesser of 2 evils. Instead many of them will now be consigned to living in refugee camps for months, maybe years to come.

Want to help out?

As you sit there, in the comfort of a warm, dry home and wonder what you can do to help…how about considering a donation, however small to some of the charities which are helping out in Burma, China and South Africa? Here are some links:

Red Cross

Medecins Sans Frontieres

Unicef

We’re now in Cape Town and looking forward to getting settled…so until I can get back to posting something more sensible, here are a few brief updates in the meantime:

Nightmare journey from Dubai

Thanks to Mr. Bush’s arrival in the Emirate, the whole city was shut down with about 12 hours notice. This meant main roads were closed and routes to the airport were all but cut off. Read more about our nightmare journey here.

First impressions of Cape Town

Having finally arrived in Cape Town late on Monday night we’ve had a couple of hectic days trying to catch up with work stuff (we’re swamped at the moment), exploring our new home for the next 3 months and trying to find somewhere more permanent to stay than where we currently are.

So far, Cape Town reminds us a little of several places in New Zealand with a very relaxed, laid-back kind of vibe. Weather-wise it’s been a mixture of rain and sun although generally warm. Food and drink are unbelievably good value – we’ve eaten out both days and it’s cost approx. £15/$30 for two of us for all meals each day including drinks.

We’re actually planning to stay just outside of the city – to the south and the place we’re going to look at this afternoon is about 100m from the beach, so sounds pretty nice. After the dusty metropolis of Dubai, getting back to some greenery and nature will be a treat.

Daddy Long Legs Boutique Apartments

They’ve had a fair bit of press coverage recently as the most popular boutique hotel and apartments in the city so we were quite excited to get a good deal for a 1 bedroom apartment here. Upon viewing some online reviews about the place however, we were less than thrilled to hear they give you ear plugs when you arrive due to the location of the place on one of the main drags in the city. Here’s our review…

The good

• Great location within walking distance of some superb eateries.
• More spacious than a hotel room and fairly well equipped although you wouldn’t want to cook a gourmet meal (but with such fantastic eating options around. there’s no need).
• Bare brick walls, cool wall art and wooden floors make for a comfortable but funky feel.

The bad

• Wireless internet is available using the Skyrove service which works out to be fairly expensive if you’re a heavy user, as I am.
• Although it’s nice and secure, getting in and out of the apartment is a pain with an awkward main front door and metal gate to contend with.

The ugly

• The noise so far has been bearable but on weekends it’d be a bit of a nightmare as the apartments are situated above a fairly lively cafe and whilst the music isn’t too loud during the week, you can hear the sound of people until around midnight.
• Probably due to its location above a bar, the smell of cigarette smoke seems to seep up into the living room at night although the air conditioning in the bedroom helps keep the air cleaner.

Plans for the next 3 months

I mentioned before that we’re both pretty busy with the business at the moment. It’s great for income but not so great when we want to go shark diving, off on safari and exploring Africa! So the focus is going to be on trying to expand the business over the next few months and essentially ‘grow up’. We’ve already got the growth strategy sorted out and now just need to start implementing it. In preparation for this, we’ve been working on upgrading our Project Woodward site which is almost finished but with a few final tweaks needed.

Donald Trump

I treated myself to a book yesterday – yes, an actual book! It was Donald Trump & Bill Zanker’s new book, Think Big & Kick Ass in Life & Business. I’d read an interview with Bill Zanker in Inc. magazine recently which was interesting so thought it’d be a good idea to read about the mindset of some very big business players. It was a great read – and despite what you think of “The Donald”, you can’t deny that he’s been phenomenally successful. To read him spout off about various people was a refreshing change from the play-nicely approach and nicey-nice attitude that’s been bugging me about some people recently!!!

Fed up with the niceness & staying authentic

I think I’m a pretty nice person – I like to help people (too much sometimes) and I try my best to think good thoughts. But recently I’ve found myself trying too hard to be nice because in some way (and I do blame some of this on all the fluffy personal development stuff), thinking bad stuff is bad. Well, this is my official “bollocks” to that. I’ve got the impression from some of the blogs I’ve been reading recently that people are often nice and positive because that’s how they’re meant to be – you get what you give, you attract what you put out and all that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a big believer in the law of attraction and making things happen for you by the thoughts you have, but equally I’m getting a tad fed up with people just being so darned nice, never wanting to offend anyone and being insanely positive and grateful….because that’s what you have to be if you want things to work out for you.

Piffle. But enough of that rant…I’ll write some more coherent thoughts about that later!