This is the self conscious bit, telling you something of myself without over-embellishment or even indeed under-embellishment. There is a considerable amount that I can detail about my background and my skills and attributes. So here goes:-I am Zimbabwean by birth and I grew up out there till my early teenage years. My childhood years were when my deep love and respect for the wild and nature was formulated. My parents loved to camp and picnic in the bush so my early memories are full of picturesque picnic spots on sandy African river banks, amongst the bald rocked kopjies, or under the shade of a large Baobab. My Dad used to take me on patrol with him for a few days at a time when he had to traverse the back country of 1960s Southern Rhodesia, where sleeping by languid rivers would mean hippos grazing around our camp in the night, or the hyenas laughing and tittering around us into the early hours. At times we would wake in the cold predawn hours and silently climb a nearby hill to watch the sun rise and listen to the African night sounds diminish to be replaced by the dawn chorus.
These wonderful experiences and myriad others suffused the very essence of my being, so much so that when I entered my adult years, my only choice for a profession was to become an Outward Bound instructor. I joined Outward Bound in 1985 working first at their centre in Aberdovey before moving up to the mountain school at Eskdale. From here I went out to Outward Bound in Lesotho then moved up to Zimbabwe. A return to the UK and Outward Bound Wales before heading back out to Zimbabwe where I effectively brought my Outward Bound career to a close.
After my time with Outward Bound I found myself in the professional field of care work, first at a small residential school for primary age children who were in care, and then within the mental health sector working as a development support worker and manager for a couple of mental health charities.
During this time I embarked on my training in Transcational Analysis and I established a private counselling and psychotherapy practice. Eventually I went full time with this work providing therapy for individuals and couples. I integrated my outdoor knowledge and experience in my work often taking couples and individuals into the outdoors as a means of enhancing their therapeutic experiences. These approaches were highly successful and I went on to develop group work practice in more demanding wild settings. I used the term wilderness therapy to describe this work because it was early days in the formulation of this professional approach in the UK.
I stepped away from this work and took a year long sebatacal at the end of which I chose to work in various arenas - as a wilderness facilitator, a sea kayak guide, workshop facilitator, and a jewellery artist.
Then came our major life change at the beginning of 2013 with our complete downsizing and move onto our yacht. I now concentrate on my sea kayak guiding and my writing. I am very interested in collaborating with like minded professionals in the field of outdoor facilitation, particularly with regard to deepening our relationships with ourselves, with others, and the natural world.
