Freelance writer, mother, blogger, cleaner, journalist, cook.
These are all accurate descriptions of what I do more or less on a daily basis. The nice thing is that I do most of it with a view on the Alps.
Six years ago my husband and I packed up our home in South Africa and embarked on an Austrian adventure with our then two-year-old son. Coenraad was going to continue his career with an international childcare organisation in Innsbruck. My job was to oversee the process of settling in. For the first time in my life I was a full-time mother. I was a housewife.
The previous 16 years my life pretty much revolved around the stories I was going to write for the next edition of the newspaper I was working for at the time. As provincial correspondent for the Afrikaans daily newspaper Beeld, from 2000 to 2010, every day started with a call to the police communications department and the question: “So what does it look like on the crime scene today?”
In between the murder and mayhem, I wrote about corruption, service delivery issues, political power struggles, natural disasters, personal tragedies and sometimes a rare gem of a human interest story that left a lasting impression.
Naturally, Austrian domestic life did not provide nearly as much excitement as I was used to. So I turned my focus to one of my other passions: travelling. Whether it’s exploring nearby villages or crossing the border into Italy, we try to get around as much as our time and budget allows.
And then, before I knew it, Mattheus started kindergarten and then school. I had more time to write again. I started by writing some travel articles for Beeld, did regular work for an international NGO and finally braved the world of online freelance writing by joining Upwork in 2015. I am happy to say that, after completing almost 50 jobs successfully, I have managed to maintain top-rated status.
Now it is time to expand my online presence with my own blog. Why? Because I am forever inspired by everyday experiences that make my fingers want to hit the keyboard and drum out a story.
So if it starts writing itself in my mind, I am probably going to blog about it.
writewordswell 