In April 2000, Ally and I moved to London. We found a cosy one bedroom apartment in Hammersmith above a restaurant called "The Grove" that specialised in delicious rib eye steaks.
Working for Siegelgale
The Internet boom was in full swing and I found a job quickly and easily, working as a consultant for a branding company called Siegelgale. It was a young, vibrant company that was growing fast. I was new to branding so it was a fast learning curve as I learned the art of creating "brand souls" for companies and helping them to reflect it in everything they did. It was a client facing and fast paced job after the snail pace of Old Mutual so I found it quite difficult and had to put in long hours. The people were great though including Peter Gibson, the CEO, who was extremely fun, creative and zany.
Some of my highlights at Siegelgale were personally coming up with the name of a Polish Bank (Intelligo), creating a brand strategy for
Safe Host (an Internet hosting company based in Switzerland), and working with Peter Gibson and Anita on a huge project to rebrand a leading Israeli bank called
Bank Hapoalim. The last project necessitated weekly trips to Tel Aviv which I loved. The project took well over 6 months and and our project team and clients became a very close knit group.
Life in London
In our spare time, Ally and I made the most of living in London. I bought rollerblades and every Sunday, rollerbladed from Hammersmith to Hyde Park to play touch rugby with a group of friends that included Mike, a good friend from South Africa days. Both Ally and I also had bikes and that is how we mostly got around. We lived very close to the Thames and on weekends, we would cycle along the river to Putney and watch the rowing competitions on the river.
We had several friends living in London including Colleen and Jo and Steve and we often visited them and went on outings. Later on, Ally's sister Kerri started working for a company that did marketing for theatres and she had access to lots of free tickets so I got to watch many free shows such as Vagina Monologues, All Off, Lady Windermere's Fan and Shock Headed Peter.
Other highlights were
Jo and Anthony,
mum and Mike and Rosemarie and Nick coming to stay with us. We also got to visit Cape Town on a couple of occasions where I was reunited with my best friend,
Russel and we attended the weddings of
Dirk and Bronwyn, Fraser and
Jo and Steve . Mum and Mike also
got married and their wedding was very special indeed, especially as Gran and Gramps were able to be there and see mum so happy. Another major highlight was when
Sammy was born in 2000 (we were in Cape Town at the time) and when
Matthew was born in 2003.
Travel and tour leading
In September 2001, as the Internet bubble burst, Siegelgale started laying off its staff and it closed its London office not long after. I found myself unemployed and with so many Internet specialists retrenched, it was impossible to find a job.
I used the opportunity to do some travel. I spent 6 weeks in Africa doing a trip from
Cape Town to Nairobi (in Kenya) with an overland company. Right after that, I spent an unforgettable month in
Nepal hiking the Annapurna Circuit (a three week hike through the Himalayas) and visiting the Chitwan National Park. I fell totally in love with Nepal - both the scenery and the people. I experienced true peace while hiking in the mountains and it was a spiritual renaissance for me. I met a wonderful guy called
Sanjay who I'm still in touch with to this day.
I returned to London but the job situation was still very bad. My trip through Africa had made me really keen to try out tourleading, so with Ally's blessing (she was so supportive), I
phoned up all the tourleading companies in the UK. I did not have experience as a tourleader so mostly hit brickwalls at first but then I lucked out when I phoned Oasis Overland who urgently needed a tourleader in the Middle East (an area I knew thanks to my trip in 2007).
I spent the next 5 months
leading overland trips from Istanbul in Turkey to Cairo in Egypt with stops in Syria and Jordan. I was responsible for 30 young people (mostly Aussies and Kiwis) in the back of a big yellow truck. It was quite stressful at first but I soon relaxed into it and I experienced the 5 most exciting and fulfilling months of my life. I learned to cook Spaghetti Bolonaise for 30 people, learned how to bribe Syrian border officials. I organised the travel itinerary and booked accomodation and local guides. I coped with all sorts of crises and problems. And loved every minute of it. My confidence flourished.
After 5 months, I returned to London to be reunited with Ally. Adam, Ally's 18 year old cousin,
came to stay with us for a while and we all had lots of fun times together. Ally and I also spent an idyllic week in
Barbados. Later on, we also had a holiday in
Croatia
Working for Volvo
Then I received a call from Volvo from a guy called
Mats who said they had seen my CV and had a challenging role for me. The role was based in Cambridge at the European headquarters and involved taking all of Volvo's fragmented hotchpotch of Internet sites and consolidating it into a seamless experience on one system. See
more about the project.
It was a wonderful job. The people were great and I got to do lots of travelling, especially to Sweden, but also to the US and Brazil where I got to see the
Iguazu Falls. My favourite part of the job was training staff on the new system which allowed me to meet people from all over the world. Our project team consisted of just 3 people (Mats, a dynamic and friendly guy, Caroline who I became very good friends with and myself.) But together we were a great team and we made a very substantial difference to Volvo's global Internet presence.
The only drawback to the job was the fact I needed to commute from London to Cambridge. I solved this by staying in a Bed and Breakfast for several nights of the week. But it was expensive and not ideal. So after a year at Volvo, Ally and I decided to relocate to Cambridge. And a
new chapter in our lives began.
List of memories of our time in London
Arriving
- Staying with Ally´s friend, Vicky
- Easy Internet on Tottenham Court road
Leisure activities
- Touch rugby at Hyde Park & the pub afterwards for shandy and roast beef
- Gareth, Wheels, Tanya, Mike (touch rugby)
- Rollerblading to Hyde Park every Sunday to play touch rugby
- Plays courtesy of Kerry (Vagina Monologues, All Off, Lady Windermere's Fan, Shock Headed Peter)
- Biking round London
- Cycling along the Thames
- Cycling round London (Queens Way, Leicester Square)
- Tennis with Mike
Family and friends
Movies, TV, music
- The Office (TV comedy series)
- Lord of the Rings movies
- Classical music on minidisk
- Big Brother
- Pop Idol (Simon Cowell, rooting for Will Young)
- Listening to David Gray (especially Sail Away) on train
- Norah Jones in Cambridge, especially "Come Away with Me."
Books
- Discovering and reading the Harry Potter books
- "Conversations with God" Neale Donald Walsch
- Web books on design when got Volvo job
Gadgets, computer
- Minidisk player (Xmas 2001)
- Classical music on minidisk player
- Playing with new lap top
- Web surfing and seeing blogs - the seed of getting this one
Personal development and spirituality
- Landmark Forum
- Career counselling
- Eve Dolphin
- Chi Gong
- Thai chi
Between jobs
- Paintball martial
- Barclays flow interview
- Prudential presentation
- Oasis interview
- Trafalgar interview
Plays, exhibitions, concerts
- Body World's Exhibitions
- Les Miserables
- Pavarotti in Hyde Park
- Royal Geographic Society (Blue Planet + Ultimate Killers)
Food
- Tescos Crème Caramel
- The Grove rib-eye steak
- Roast beef & Yorkshire pudding (touch rugby)
- Eating at the Oxo Towers
Travel
Siegelgale (Apr 2000 - Jun 2001)
- "Team building" fun day out with Siegelgale
- The great view from Siegelgale Offices
- Sushi lunches from Tescos
- Safe Host project
- Infuzer
- Coming up with the name for Intelligo
- Bank Hapoalim branding project - all the visits to Tel Aviv
- Gerry, Kate, Peter, Javed, Brad, Anita, Ken, Becky, John, Aaron and co
Volvo (2003)
- Start working for Volvo
- Staying with Johnathon and Amanda in Cambridge
- Meeting Andrew, Mats, Caroline, Richard and Andreas
- CMS Training
- Multiple trips to Gothenberg
- Trip to Asheville
- Staying over in Duxford B&B with "Aunt Linda"
- Duxford Pub
- Train trips from London to Duxford
- Trip to Brazil, Asheville (rafting), Gothenburg
Cape Town visits
Russell
- Climbing through Steenbras cracks with Rusty
- Air hockey and bowling with Russel
- Mental tricks with coins and cards with Rusty
2000 (as leaving)
Aug 2001
Feb 2002
2003
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