It was while I was in this state of mind that my (future) wife asked me why I didn’t record a new album. I looked at her slightly incredulously. “Isn’t it obvious?” I said. “It takes money and I have none.” I was in a horribly negative headspace and the last thing I needed was another reminder of my failures. I thought the conversation was closed but she kept at it, asking how much it costs and what was needed and how I would go about it if I HAD the money. Then she offered to help me. I immediately said, “Don’t be mad!” I’m a very proud person and I like to do things myself. But Gaye can be very stubborn and VERY persuasive when she wants to be and she would not take no for an answer! Eventually, I agreed, once she’d accepted that I’d pay her back every cent. However, I was in such a slump, it was hard to think that it was all real. My mind simply refused to accept that I could start making my dream a reality. Gaye knew this and so she started pushing me and pushing me, asking if I’d talked to anyone, where we stood with finding a producer, what the next step in the process was etc. I began to think she REALLY meant it and I eventually started to motivate myself. I met with a few producers to discuss options but none of them really grabbed me. I knew the sound that I wanted and I knew that I wanted to be fully in control. Handing my songs over to a stranger and then waiting for them to interpret them, was not an option for me. I wanted to co-produce and I needed someone who understood that, and understood me musically. It was a scary thing because it could go so wrong and my songs are precious to me, as is my career. All of these made good excuses to just do nothing, because I still wasn’t completely comfortable with accepting her help and I have to admit, I was in a complete slump. You know that place where everything just seems like an effort? You feel tired all the time, but you can never get enough sleep. I didn’t want to gym anymore which is a big deal for me because I love it. I didn’t want to sing and my guitar was my worst enemy because it wasn’t speaking to me. I had the worst kind of writer’s block and I was convinced I’d never get out of it. I wanted to feel better but I didn’t have enough respect for myself to even start trying. In short, I hated myself. Luckily, I had an amazing woman who loved me enough for both of us.

In this headspace, it was hard to find the right producer and I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen. Out of the blue I received a facebook message from John Ellis, Tree63 frontman. We’d been friends for a few years, and we’d gigged together in the past but we lost touch for a while when he went to America. I had always been a fan of his music and his guitaring and followed Tree63′s musical career with interest. As far as I knew, he was still in America but he’d put his cell number in the message and it was a local number so I called him to touch base. It turns out he’d been back for quite some time and he happened to mention that he was trying his hand at producing. Something clicked in my mind and I just knew this is what I had been waiting for. I don’t think he took me seriously when I said I was looking for a producer but, after a few weeks and a few emails, I think he finally realised this was going to happen. It took a while to finalise things, mostly because of our schedules AND we’re both artists so we live in an almost constant state of procrastination;) All the while Gaye was behind me, pushing me to push him. The thing with artists is that we need constant pushing because we lose faith in ourselves so easily and, either we fall into a rut, or we take something bad happening as a sign that it’s not supposed to happen at all. We can convince ourselves of just about anything because we are that insecure! We carry our hearts on our sleeves and the world on our shoulders. My practical virgo side is constantly at odds with my creative side. This time, the virgo won out and I have my wife to thank for that. We finally pinned down some dates, booked FACE Studios in Westville and started in October last year. I decided to choose one song and finish it from top to bottom, just to see how we all worked together. We started with I CHOOSE ME. Greg Bedford was engineering and John and I were producing and, right from the start, there was an amazing synergy between all of us. The entire song was finished in less than a week and we all had a feeling we’d just created something very special.

Over the next few months I got away to Durban a few more times, but it was tricky between all of our schedules. On my side, we were moving into our new house although we still didn’t have a bathroom or bedroom and the house was literally a building site. Everyday brought new challenges and new decisions; like choosing ALL the fittings for our new bathroom and camping in the lounge with 4 cats and a bird and NO indoor toilet. Having to trudge through the sludge of our Parktown Prawn-infested garden in the rain, in the dark, to use the outdoor toilet was NOT fun! We were also planning our wedding, and to make it more complicated, we’d chosen a beach in Knysna as a location! That involved even more challenges and decisions and travelling back and forth. I was trying to make important career decisions while Gaye was in the process of starting a new division at her work and her responsibilities had multiplied by about 70! I often had to travel to Durban to record and she was left trying to handle everything on her own more than a few times. Sleep was a luxury and quality time was simply non-existent. My poor wife, who never shows the slightest bit of stress, was beginning to feel the strain. I asked her jokingly if she was sure she knew what she was getting into by marrying an artist. Things were probably going to get worse once the album came out, and this was just one of many more to come! She was a trooper and she supported me every step of the way, despite her carrying such a heavy load of responsibilities. While all this was happening on our side, John’s side was no less chaotic. He had a wife and children to think of, a new album to promote and a schedule that didn’t bear thinking about. We were so fortunate that FACE Studios was so accommodating. We worked very odd hours and often had to grab opportunities at the last minute. In hindsight I still wonder how we didn’t all go mad!

You would think that, in all this chaos, the creative process would be completely compromised. Ironically it seemed to wake us all up! Because we were flying by the seat of our pants in our privates lives, we followed suit with the album, juggling loads of balls in the air and somehow keeping them all up there. Amazingly it didn’t compromise the integrity of the album at all. We were completely focused on everything we did, when we did it, and the songs seemed to just fall into place. In fact, it happened so fast that we started worrying that we were missing something, or we’d made wrong decisions, or been to hasty. It was a bit unnerving how smoothly everything went. I put it down to the fact that we were working with such talent. Everything happened in half the time because the musicians seemed to be able to literally “turn on” the creativity at the drop of a hat. There was such a great synergy between everyone involved. In fact, it’s something that I’ve noticed when it comes to my music, when I am following the right path, things are pretty easy. Opportunities fly at me, money seems easy to come by and everything runs smoothly. The minute I veer off that path I start hitting obstacles and sometimes it takes a while to wake up to it but I eventually do. I knew this was the right path because the universe was literally opening the door for me to walk through, and I was listening to it for the first time in ages.

Let’s dissect the album a bit so you can see where I’m coming from:

I think the tone of the album is set right from the start with FREE. The name says it all really. There’s no question that I’m more free now, in every sense of the word, than I’ve ever been before. Musically I have the freedom to do what I want with my songs, for the first time in my life. It’s a feeling that I find hard to describe and, during the course of recording the album, I kept having to remind myself that this was MY album and what I said, and what I thought, mattered. It was ok to say no if I wasn’t happy about something and there was no-one to argue with me. I’ve recorded and released 2 full length albums, a 5 track afrikaans EP and three singles, one of which won me a SAMA award (CABIN FEVER single) and one of which won me a SAMA nomination (UNSPOKEN TRUTH). I’ve performed on stage with some great artists like Katie Melua, Sarah Bettens, Tree63, Watershed, Nianell, to name a few. At this stage of my career I should be entirely comfortable with where I am musically. I should be proud of what I’ve achieved. Most people would be. However, there’s a part of me that has almost seemed to apologise for what I’ve achieved. I don’t always feel like I deserve it and I never really believed I was good enough, I didn’t believe enough in myself, and my music, to think I could do it alone. Knowing all that, it may seem strange that I’ve continued to pursue a career in music for the last 15 years! I clearly love the challenge. However, what I’ve learnt recently is this, and it may sound cheesy but it’s the absolute truth; until you learn to love and accept yourself for exactly who you are, you will continue to feel the need to apologise for who you are and nobody will really take you seriously. And it helps if you can find the courage to stay true to who you are, even in the face of adversity. A little anger won’t go amiss;) People don’t like change much and they don’t like “different”. They’ll try and convince you otherwise and when you refuse to budge, they can turn nasty. You have to get comfortable with the fact that you can’t please everyone. What you need and want and feel is more important than what other people think. So my newly acquired freedom also comes down to me deciding to love and accept myself despite other’s perceptions. It’s a constant battle and I have to challenge myself almost daily. Hearing people criticise and attack who I am, is hard for a person who does the same thing to herself on a daily basis. I have to keep telling myself that it’s only fear and ignorance that makes them act out that way. We artists are pretty sensitive creatures. We are our own worst enemies. We sell ourselves short all the time and we don’t even realise that WE build the prison walls that surround us.

I made the decision, last year, to break down the walls. I took a leap of faith and I was completely honest about myself, to the whole world, for the first time. The sense of freedom that comes from stepping off that cliff and not knowing if there’s a safety net, is indescribable. I’ve grown so much as a person in the last year. It’s amazing how, when you OWN who you are, and where you come from, suddenly everything else in your life starts to make sense.

When I was thinking about the cover of the album, all I knew was that I wanted it to be different to anything I’d ever done before. I knew I’d changed, and my music had changed and I didn’t want to stick to the conventional way of doing things. I was tired of playing the nice girl. Everyone has a “dark side”. Few people are willing to acknowledge it and embrace it. They keep it behind closed doors because it’s safer that way. I’m not a confrontational person. I hate to rock the boat. But you can’t keep living your life that way or you’ll never grow. I think challenges are good for a person. So I took myself out of my comfort zone and I embraced that side of me that isn’t sweet and soft and compliant. I found the “edginess” in me and I also embraced the woman I am. I am soft at times, I am nice at times, but there are times when I’m not and that rebellious side of me is coming out more and more as I get older and wiser. I wanted to look and feel sexy, and a little angry, for this album cover, because that’s also a part of who I am. I chose a sexy suit because a lot of people expect a lesbian to dress like a man, but none of them expect a suit like THAT and none of them expect lesbians to LOOK like a woman;) It was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying, “Here’s your stereotype… NOT!” I wanted everyone to understand that I may be different to their idea of the norm, but I’m still a woman and I embrace that in every sense of the word. The name of the album drives all of this home. I struggled long and hard with the name before I settled on I Choose Me. I have a policy. Don’t name an album with a track name. To me it seems a bit lazy and it usually doesn’t capture the essence of the album. However, no matter which way I looked at it, nothing captured my state of mind, and my album, better than the words I Choose Me, and so the album chose it’s own name.

This album captures a lot of this new me I’ve discovered. Take the title track, I CHOOSE ME, for example. I was at the lowest point in my life. I wasn’t sure how I was going to claw my way out of the hole I was in. I hadn’t written a song in ages and I thought I’d lost it. And then someone told me that I WAS worth it, I DESERVED what I’d achieved, I had a RIGHT to expect more for myself and I went home and wrote I CHOOSE ME in about 10 minutes flat. Songs like that are a rare gift. They come from a part of you that you aren’t even aware exists. I sat back after writing it, and I listened to what I’d recorded and I KNEW every word was true. It’s become my own anthem and I hope it becomes an anthem for many others out there who, like me, struggle to find acceptance and who are at odds with themselves. This song is to let them know that they are good enough and that no-one has the right to tell them otherwise. We all have secrets we are hiding and people are so selective about what they consider to be right and wrong. It’s the reason we shot the music video for I CHOOSE ME the way we did. The video, and the song, warn people not to judge a book by it’s cover. If you take someone at face value and base your decision purely on what you THINK you are seeing, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. The song encourages people to rather form their own thoughts and opinions, and to embrace their differences, rather than fight them. We’re not sheep. We’ve been given free thought for a reason. We can make choices for ourselves. I think sometimes people are just a bit lazy and it’s easier to let someone else do the thinking for them. I also think part of their thinking is based on fear of the unknown. The song, and the video, encourages people to think outside of the box; think about the possibilities of “what if” and it challenges them to look inside themselves and make a decision to start being true to who they are, to stop apologising for it and to start making a noise about it. That’s my hope anyway.

Krystle T is a good friend who is currently working on her first album. She’s young, she’s enthusiastic and she’s passionate and she reminds me so much of myself when I first started doing music. I didn’t have a lot of support back then and that’s why I’m so glad that we met when we did because I can help where I can to give her a bit of the guidance and support that I lacked. She asked me if I’d be willing to do a duet with her and I said sure but I wasn’t really sure where the idea would take us. And then one day, I sat down in front of my keyboard and YOU’LL KNOW came about. I definitely wrote it with her in mind. The lyrics are based around someone who’s already been down a certain path, giving another person advice and encouragement. The song has an overall positive feel to it and I love how Josh Klynsmith interpreted it with his drumming. He lifts it to a whole new level. I knew almost from the beginning that I wanted a choir singing at the end. There are few things more uplifting than hearing a chorus of voices singing a positive, uplifting message. It never fails to give me goose bumps when I hear it. And what’s so amazing is that that choir is made up of just 4 female voices!

SOMETIMES is a song I wrote about 11 years ago when I was still with my old band, Ichabod. I was in a difficult relationship at the time and that’s really what inspired it. It never made it onto an album and I always felt like it was missing lyrics and I was never able to write more because I’d moved on emotionally. Part of the lyrics had also been added by one of the band members back then and it wouldn’t have been right to use them. I knew I’d need to rework the whole song and the inspiration just hadn’t come to me. When John Ellis heard it, he loved it and was determined it needed to be on the album but he also felt it was missing something lyrically. That night I went home and picked up my guitar and within about 10 minutes I had a chorus and a bridge for the song. It literally poured out of me. I quickly recorded a demo of it and took it with to the studio the next day and John loved it. And so SOMETIMES ended up on the album and I love how it’s turned out. To me it’s reminiscent of one my favourite bands, Fleetwood Mac. It’s very easy listening and it’s also my wife’s favourite!

I think, if I look at the songs on the album, there isn’t one that doesn’t capture where I am in my life right now. My past albums have been almost like diaries for me. I allowed myself to just be open to every feeling and I poured them into the songs. Even the names accentuate that: Yesterday’s Diary and Unspoken Truth. There was a melancholy air to them because that’s where I was in my life at the time. People commented often on how I needed to write happy songs!

What feels different for me about this album is that, even songs like LONELY NIGHTS, SPACE TO BREATHE and UNDONE, which are not terribly happy songs, also have a sense of anger and rebelliousness to them, lyrically, that implies that I’ve changed and that I will no longer take nonsense from anyone. I’m not drifting around, feeling sorry for myself, drowning in my own despair. There is an overall feeling that I’ve had some kind of epiphany, that I’ve discovered a sense of self, that I’ve made some changes and that I’m angry enough to talk about it. And I have made changes. CHANGE IN ME says it best, I think. It’s my way of starting a conversation with whoever is listening. I’m saying, “Look at me, I’ve changed. I want to be able to be myself and I want you to accept me, but I don’t NEED you to accept me. Are you willing to take the leap with me and free yourself?” I think there’s definitely been a shift, musically and, if you listen to all the lyrics, there’s also been a shift lyrically. It comes from a shift in attitude. I like to think I’ve grown and this album, for me, is a direct result of that growth. It’s a very different album for me, but it’s also still me.

As I’ve said, this is the first time I’ve had the freedom to express myself the way I want to. The songs are a little more rough around the edges than usual. We haven’t cleaned up too much because I wanted to keep the organic feel of the songs. SONG FOR KELLY was definitely one of those organic tracks. If you listen with a trained ear you’ll realise the drums are not even played to a click track. They’ve hardly been edited. Josh just sat down and played while I sang and strummed my guitar and Greg recorded it. It never really had a structure to start with aside from how I’d originally written it and that’s how I wanted it to stay. I wanted to capture the emotion of the song, because it is coming from a very emotional place. I wrote the song for a very good friend of mine who was killed in a horrific accident two and a half years ago. We loved the same kind of music and she also loved my music so I knew she’d appreciate how I recorded the song. I literally handed it over to the universe and John intuited where it needed to go and suddenly the song took on a life of it’s own. It was one of the hardest vocals I’ve ever had to record because I kept getting a lump in my throat but it didn’t bother me too much because that’s exactly how I felt and we used the whole vocal take, hiccups and all. When I first gave John a list of 30 tracks to choose from for the album, that song was a non-negotiable. It was going on the album regardless. It’s Kelly’s song and, in my own way, I’m immortalising her I guess, because I believe music has that power and we’ll always have this connection.

THINK I’LL STAY and READY TO BELIEVE are really just songs about meeting someone, and wondering if they feel the same way you do. No relationship comes without its complications and my own was no different in the beginning, largely because of where I was emotionally. But underneath it all I knew that this was who and what I wanted and that made everything else easy. As much I love to be loved, and to be IN love, I’ve never really been lucky in love and there is a part of me that always thinks something is going to go wrong. Luckily for me I have found a partner who is so grounded and secure in herself that she can look past my insecurities and see them for what they are and then she can convince me otherwise, because she is so patient and so strong. She makes it so easy for me to finally believe in someone. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to come home to that;)

That, in a very large nutshell, is the story behind my album. Of course, it has yet to hit the shelves, but the process is well on it’s way and I really believe that everything has a time and a place, for a reason. The album will come out when it needs to come out and I’m completely ok with that. In the meantime, I am putting every ounce of energy that I possess into making it all a reality because I’m well past the stage of thinking that it won’t happen. I now believe in it, and myself, wholeheartedly. In the year that has passed, I have gotten married (in style!), created and built a beautiful home with my new wife, recorded a new album, and found ME; a person I’d thought I’d lost, and tried to forget, on purpose. I have my wife to thank for bringing me back to me but I also know she couldn’t have done it if I hadn’t wanted it so I have to be grateful to myself as well for finally taking the step and accepting who I am, and loving myself for it. Each day brings new challenges, but we’re a team and so we face them together and it’s a beautiful feeling knowing that we are both safe and secure in each other’s hands. The future looks bright and welcoming.

My hope, for this album, is that it speaks to people the way that it spoke to me. There are so many of you out there who are in the same place that I was. Listen to the songs, take the lyrics to heart and KNOW that you have the right to choose YOU. You are worth it. You are the only person who can be YOU, so embrace that, accept who you are, despite what anyone else thinks. You’ll be amazed at what happens when you no longer buy into other’s belief systems. Define your own “normal” and suddenly others will start to realise that it’s not so different from their “normal”. And maybe you’ll be less inclined to hide and keep your thoughts to yourself, because you’ll believe in who you are and you’ll be proud of yourself. You deserve that. Stop apologising and start living. You only get one shot at this life. Make it count.

“IT’S TIME THAT EVERY PERSON MADE A CHOICE, TO SIT ALONE IN SILENCE OR TO BE THE NOISE”

It’s not so easy, that big elephant in the room. Picture this, somewhat similar, scenario: You have a friend that you were close to for many years at school. After school, she went to Varsity; you joined a band and tried to start a music career. She got married and thought about having kids, you had one failed relationship after another. You’re both living in different worlds and yet you both feel obliged to meet for coffee and talk about inane things because your own, real lives, don’t have any bearing on each other. It’s an unspoken agreement that you don’t EVER talk about the differences, the lack of actual interest in each other lives or the fact that, actually, you’d both rather be getting on with those lives than be sitting there, talking across the surface of them to try and hold on to a friendship that, you’re beginning to think, really should’ve been given a decent burial on the last day of school. If you’d only broach the subject, and take things to a deeper level, you’d realise you both have the same fears and the big elephant in the room becomes a little mouse, or even better, it ceases to breathe altogether.

This is the situation I am in with someone I once loved with all my heart. The once “object of my affection”, who always spoke the same language as me, has become a stranger and I can’t help wondering if it’s my fault or hers. Perhaps it’s both of us. You see, one day, she failed me. I had a story to tell, weighing heavily on my heart and she was the one friend who always listened and always gave me such good advice and I knew, if anyone was going to understand me, she was. Until that day. I poured my heart out, I plucked at her heart strings, then I beat them in anger, then I stroked them coercively, all to no avail. She wouldn’t listen. She refused to hear.

Naturally I lost a little faith in her. I punished her for a few days until I thought she’d learned her lesson. Again I sat her down and tried to explain how I was feeling and again she refused to acknowledge it. This time I hardly tried. I merely got up and walked away. There were a few other half-hearted attempts on my part but I always felt like I had to make the first move and she never gave anything back. Our relationship changed levels. We would sit down to talk now and then and all we’d do was rehash old stories, sometimes we’d even discuss other people’s stories just in case we dipped below the level we were trying so hard to maintain. Both of us were skimming across the surface of our glass ceiling, neither of us daring to change the pattern we’d inadvertently weaved in case we saw a crack developing. Heaven forbid we should have to deal with that. That would be actually giving a name to the glass ceiling which we had come to covet and protect like a fragile bird’s egg. Ironic, really, since it was as thick as the wall of China.

And so the days, weeks, months passed. I’d get up in the morning, walk past her, look right through her and try hard not to reminisce about the days when it was different and every day I’d think, today is the day. And every night I’d get into bed and think, tomorrow is definitely the day.

And yet, this morning I got up and I walked past her again…Except this time I’m allowing myself to dwell on my callous behaviour, and I can feel a strange tingling in my fingers and a tickle in my stomach and I’m definitely a little breathless. I’m not sure what it means. Perhaps I’m just fooling myself. Maybe when I get up from my computer I’ll walk towards her with the intention of something positive, and maybe she’ll look at me with a little hope and, perhaps even a little seduction in her demeanor, and I’ll imagine I hear a gentle sigh from deep inside the protective covering she’s placed around herself, and either it’ll draw me in, or scare me off. My fear of her rejection makes me want to keep walking past, but my arms are aching to hold her and my fingers are tingling with need. With a heart heavy with feeling I wonder, which emotion will out itself first?

I’m not sure where we will end up today. I’m not sure if it will happen…All I know is, this morning I woke up thinking “I WILL play my guitar today”.

Upon arriving at the venue, I was introduced to my navigator, Andre Steyn. He was a very sweet, middle-aged man and the first thing that struck me was that he had a wonderful air of peace and tranquility about him. We struck up a conversation and pretty much hit it off from the beginning. I remember feeling very much like a fish out of water at the time. Here I was, surrounded by celebrities and a crowd of people I didn’t know and, to be honest, I was just terrified to get into that car! Andre tried to explain the concept to me but, until I’d actually done it myself, it was very hard to grasp. It turned out to be not as scary as I had anticipated.

The concept of the rally is brilliant in its simplicity. The ENTIRE DAY is designed to make people more aware of the daily challenges facing visually impaired people by literally taking the control out of the hands of seeing people and making them vulnerable and reliant on another person. The driver has no idea what the route is, it is merely their job to get to the places they’re told to go. The navigator reads the driver the instructions out of a booklet typed in Braille. This effectively strips the driver of their independence and forces them to rely on someone else to get them to where they need to be. Add to this the fact that there can only be one winner and suddenly the pressure is on!

It is the celebrity’s “job” to look after their navigator for the entire day. To that end, the celebrity’s partners aren’t invited to the gala dinner as the driver and the navigator are partners from the beginning to the end of the day. What greater way to discover how it feels to be a visually impaired person, than to actually experience life “through the eyes” of a visually impaired person? One takes it for granted that, when you stand up to go to the bathroom, you can just simply GO. However, when you have to consider a person who can’t see where they’re actually going, things change drastically. Suddenly your mind is wondering what obstacles you will need to get past, how much time you should allow to get to the bathroom, and how challenging something like a bathroom can be for a person who can’t see.

Everywhere you look, on rally day, you see people walking in twos, one in front, and one slightly behind, attached to the front peron’s elbow. This is how we travel with our navigators from A to B. We are their “eyes” for the whole day. It’s a task that comes with many responsibilities. Wherever you walk you have to bear in mind that, behind you, is a person who can see absolutely nothing. You may take for granted that, when you walk through the doorway, you will have to compensate for the width of two people and turn your body slightly to avoid knocking an elbow. Your navigator has NO IDEA where the doorway even starts. If you don’t take that into consideration, you will be fine, but your navigator will probably be nursing a bruised elbow!

Amazingly, Andre seems to be in tune with every move my body makes so that, when I turn slightly, so does he. Obviously when one sense is impaired, the rest become far more acute. He has spent so many years relying on all his other senses, that he can get from A to B with incredible ease and confidence, with his walking stick in hand. However, he takes a chance and places his faith in me for rally day because I am taking a chance and placing my faith in him and his ability to get me to the place I need to be at the end of the race. It’s a mutual trust thing and it’s a brilliant way to force you to walk around in someone else’s shoes. You really feel what they go through and you get a small taste of the frustration they must feel at times. Visually able people take so much for granted. I wonder how I would handle it if I lost my ability to see. It would be a challenge I’m not sure I’d be up to facing.

Andre is a lawyer. He had his own practice for many years up until a few months back when he decided to join another firm. He lives on his own and he is self-sufficient in every way. He travels often with his work, he’s highly intelligent and has a busy social life. I’ve just described thousands of other South African men BUT add “visually impaired” to that list and things change considerably. It’s never been an obstacle to Andre and I can only stand in awe of his achievements and his ability to face life’s challenges head-on. He participates in rallies, like this, throughout the year, often winning them.

Let me explain how the rally works for those who have never experienced one. A rally is not a race based on speed. It is a race based on strategising and calculating and requires patience and quick thinking. The complicated part of the rally is that you are on public roads so there are many factors to take into consideration like traffic, road works and traffic lights. There is also the possibility that the navigator may misunderstand the instructions which is an easy thing to do when you are thinking of so many things at once. I have obviously never read a navigating schedule on account of the fact that it’s all in Braille! However, an example of one of the instructions Andre gives to me goes something like this: “You will reach a speed sign reading 120km, when your odometer reads 59.5, slow your speed to 60kms per hours for 5kms.” When you leave the start, you have to zero your odometer and from then on you figure out where you are supposed to be and what you’re supposed to do based on the odometer readings that they give you as part of the instructions. However, if you miss a turn and have to come back to find the route, that adds to your distance on the odometer and from then on you have to start adding which just adds to all the other things you’re having to think about! Make two or three wrong turns and it can get extremely complicated.

Following each instruction to the letter is not always so simple because, every time you get stuck at a traffic light you have to calculate how much time you have wasted and then try and make up that time on another road, even if they have told you to travel only at 50kms per hour. Sometimes you get stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. (At this point rally drivers have been known to take advantage of yellow lines and unsuspecting other drivers on the road!) Of course, one cannot forget that the navigator is blind. They have no idea if you have made the turn or not until you tell them and, at times, the instructions are slightly vague which means it could be one of a few things and you will have to make a quick choice. Your navigator can’t help you with any more that what is written on the page because they can’t see, so you have to do some improvising. On top of all THAT, my navigator is also hard of hearing which requires me repeating a lot of things. The problem with that is that some of the instructions come within 50 metres of each other and there is very little time to convey everything before you are supposed to take a turn off. It can be a highly stressful situation and the exercise here is patience; which is another good lesson to learn from the Pioneer Rally.

The aim of the rally is to finish the race in the time designated to you. Each car leaves the start at one minute intervals and, from then on you probably won’t see much of the other cars until the end of the rally. You go through 6 check points altogether, along the route, including the start and the finish and you have to reach each checkpoint within your designated time. For each second that you’re out, you lose points. If you arrive at the finish line ahead of car number 2, there is a chance you arrived too soon and you probably aren’t going to feature in the top 3. Then again, car number 2 could have gotten lost, in which case you may be right on time. It’s important to NOT worry about the other rally cars because their calculations will always be different to yours. It’s actually impossible to know how you fared in the race until the prize giving.

The first rally I did with Andre, as I said before, was a bit overwhelming. However, with very little understanding of the process, we succeeded in coming 3rd and, by the end of the day, I was hooked! I asked to do it again the following year and I also asked that Andre be my navigator again. We had swapped email addresses and numbers and started keeping in regular contact with each other. The second year we made some pretty serious mistakes and ended up coming 16th. Undaunted, I asked to do it again the following year. That year was possibly one of the hardest rallies I’ve ever done because I was also asked to perform at the gala dinner.

Between organising my band and rehearsals, getting the equipment and musicans to Worcester and making sure Andre was sorted, I barely had time to focus on the race. I also didn’t eat from 7am until about 8pm that night because I ran out of time to get myself anything and the only food available at the start of the rally, was beef, which my digestive system has never allowed me to digest! For that reason, I haven’t eaten beef for over 10 years and I wasn’t about to make myself ill just before the race. My only option was to go hungry but that made focusing extremely hard during the race. I made several wrong turns due to misunderstandings, ending up, at one stage, at a toll gate that I wasn’t supposed to be at. Despite other cars around me I didn’t think twice. I flung the car into reverse and floored it at about 100kms per hour weaving in and out of queuing cars. Spinning around mid-driving I crossed over the middle of the highway and headed back in the right direction losing only about a minute at the end of it all. Despite the mistake, that maneuver definitely sealed our partnership for Andre and he now has absolute faith in me as a driver! Although he couldn’t see anything, he realised something was wrong and, with my running commentary and the urgency in my voice, he knew I was under some serious strain! Andre still talks about it at every opportunity;)

By the end of the race my blood sugar was so low that my head was permanently buzzing and it felt like the world was slightly tilted. I still had to see to Andre and then get to the venue to do soundcheck and then back to the hotel to get myself dressed and ready to make an entrance with the other drivers. I am not sure how I actually made it through that day but all was forgotten when they announced the winners; me and Andre! I still don’t know how it happened with the drama of the day but it all made winning extremely worthwhile.

There was never a question of coming back again the following year to defend my title. What I didn’t expect was that there were definitely a few bruised male egos after my win the previous year and I wasn’t sure how to take that. I decided eventually to take it as a compliment;) I hadn’t come to win, I’d come to have fun the way I did every year. If I was competing with anyone, it was with myself. It’s how I’ve always been with anything I do. However, I know how much it means to Andre and, for that reason as well, I try and better my game every year. His face just lights up when we do well and that is one of the most rewarding things for me.

I was completely prepared for the race this time. I had a bag of chicken biltong and some cashews and dark chocolate to keep my energy levels up. I even made a flask of green tea to sip on during the race! (I learn from my mistakes thank goodness!) The race started off with an immediate delay when a car decided to pull out of his parking right in front of me just as the whistle blew for me to pull off from the starting point at Audi Centre at the V & A waterfront. A car’s hooter has never been used as much as mine has during a race;) With that delay, and a few red traffic lights, we decided to up the requested speed of 80kms per hour to 100kms per hour for a while. We were slowed down further when the course took us through several town centres and we hit a lot of traffic and several traffic lights.

It’s moments like these that I am very happy to be driving an Audi Quattro A5, 3.2 litre! Having lost much time in traffic, I needed to make up some time! Let me just state, for the record, that I am usually a very considerate driver! I keep to the speed limit and I allow other driver’s space if they need a gap but, on rally day, I drive like all the drivers on the road that I despise;) In short, I drive like an asshole;) (there is no word that fits better!) I weave in and out and take every gap I can find. When you’re doing a race you don’t have time to be considerate. Time is of the essence. I often joke to Andre that it’s a good thing he can’t see what I’m doing or he might have a stroke in the first 10 minutes of the race!

Fortunately the car has enough signage on it for most people to realise it’s a rally car and we very seldom have anyone give us a hard time. The embarrassing part comes when Andre tells me I need to do no less than 120kms per hour and I have to drive right on people’s bumpers to keep to that speed and then, 2 minutes later he tells me I need to slow down to 80kms per hour and those same people I forced aside, then come past me, looking at me like I’m completely mental and occasionally making a few rude signs in my direction! I can only laugh. In the end things like that don’t really matter. What matters is Andre’s face when we win.

At one stage of the race we were told to take the R44 to Franschoek. That is all well and good except that the only sign I could see for Franschoek was the R45! When I urgently told this to Andre he said, there must be another road further on. The navigation couldn’t be wrong. However, the turn for the R45 was exactly where the turn for the R44 was supposed to be, according to our odometer. I was pretty convinced they’d made a typo. (even in Braille, it happens!) However, Andre is the navigator and he said we need to keep going until we see the R44. After driving for probably 5 minutes I said I think we need to turn back and take the R45! He wasn’t completely convinced but I was and the handbrake turn told him he had no choice but to trust me;) If you have never driven an Audi A5 Quattro, you can’t possibly understand how it felt to cover those lost 5 minutes in less than one minute! We were low flying but I was determined to make up the time! A short while after being on the R45, the instructions were fitting which meant we were right. There was a typo on the navigation schedule. The only consolation was that EVERYONE had lost time there with the confusion and we still had a chance of making it up. The rest of the race was spent ignoring all the speed limit instructions while I drove far too fast through a few mountain passes. One of the many advantages of the Audi Quattro is that it’s a 4 wheel drive and it corners like nobody’s business! It’s the only reason I was able to drive like I did. We came racing into the finish line and it was over all too quickly. All we could do now was wait.

It was a long dinner for the two of us. Most of the time was spent discussing where we’d gone wrong and where we’d been right and weighing up all the pros and cons. I could sense Andre’s tension but I’d already decided we wouldn’t be placed this time. We’d made a few mistakes and that R44 debacle left everything up in the air. Nearly everyone had the same question for us, “So, do you think you nailed it this time?” I just smiled in response. To calm our nerves we enjoyed the steady stream of red wine being poured at our table;)

Suddenly, the moment arrived. I grabbed Andre’s hand and we held on tight as they began working their way from 41st place down to 1st. Every number they called out, my heart stopped beating for a split second. When we were down to 10th place Andre gave a little smile and I squeezed his hand. I would be happy with anything after 10th place. Then it was 9th, 8th, 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd… could this really be happening?! 2nd place was announced and there it was. We were 1st! Incredulous faces turned in our direction but I was throwing my arms around Andre and he was smiling from ear to ear and there were congratulations all around and then we were getting our trophies and cameras were flashing and we were both just grinning from ear to ear. The rest of the night is a blur after that!

I still don’t know how it happened but I’m pretty happy that it did! Andre went home smiling and I flew back to Jhb with my trophy in hand, feeling like I’d really accomplished something. I found out a bit later that Andre and I had 688 seconds error and the runner up’s time had 1160 seconds error so I think I have the Audi Quattro to thank for that big lead! I recently heard rumours that some of the other teams want to break up mine and Andre’s partnership and hearing that makes me a bit sad. I offered to drive for another navigator next year to keep the peace but the organisers don’t see the point of breaking up a good friendship and partnership. The point of the rally is not winning but the lessons we take away from it. I can’t deny it’s a good feeling winning, but I’d enjoy it just as much if I lost. Every year I leave there learning something new about myself, about life and about people. These are all lessons I value and that I carry with me from day to day.

Andre and I will be there next year to defend our title and, no doubt, we will have tougher competition from those who are determined to knock us off our perch and, guess what? I’ll fall off happily knowing that I did the best I could, and I had a good time doing it. If we win, it’ll be a wonderful bonus for us and I’ll make Andre a happy man in the process. I think that two wins, two years in a row is something for us to be proud of and, at the very least, definitely proof that women CAN drive;)

Upon arriving at the venue, I was introduced to my navigator, Andre Steyn. He was a very sweet, middle-aged man and the first thing that struck me was that he had a wonderful air of peace and tranquility about him. We struck up a conversation and pretty much hit it off from the beginning. I remember feeling very much like a fish out of water at the time. Here I was, surrounded by celebrities and a crowd of people I didn’t know and, to be honest, I was just terrified to get into that car! Andre tried to explain the concept to me but, until I’d actually done it myself, it was very hard to grasp. It turned out to be not as scary as I had anticipated.

The concept of the rally is brilliant in its simplicity. The ENTIRE DAY is designed to make people more aware of the daily challenges facing visually impaired people by literally taking the control out of the hands of seeing people and making them vulnerable and reliant on another person. The driver has no idea what the route is, it is merely their job to get to the places they’re told to go. The navigator reads the driver the instructions out of a booklet typed in Braille. This effectively strips the driver of their independence and forces them to rely on someone else to get them to where they need to be. Add to this the fact that there can only be one winner and suddenly the pressure is on!

It is the celebrity’s “job” to look after their navigator for the entire day. To that end, the celebrity’s partners aren’t invited to the gala dinner as the driver and the navigator are partners from the beginning to the end of the day. What greater way to discover how it feels to be a visually impaired person, than to actually experience life “through the eyes” of a visually impaired person? One takes it for granted that, when you stand up to go to the bathroom, you can just simply GO. However, when you have to consider a person who can’t see where they’re actually going, things change drastically. Suddenly your mind is wondering what obstacles you will need to get past, how much time you should allow to get to the bathroom, and how challenging something like a bathroom can be for a person who can’t see.

Everywhere you look, on rally day, you see people walking in twos, one in front, and one slightly behind, attached to the front peron’s elbow. This is how we travel with our navigators from A to B. We are their “eyes” for the whole day. It’s a task that comes with many responsibilities. Wherever you walk you have to bear in mind that, behind you, is a person who can see absolutely nothing. You may take for granted that, when you walk through the doorway, you will have to compensate for the width of two people and turn your body slightly to avoid knocking an elbow. Your navigator has NO IDEA where the doorway even starts. If you don’t take that into consideration, you will be fine, but your navigator will probably be nursing a bruised elbow!

Amazingly, Andre seems to be in tune with every move my body makes so that, when I turn slightly, so does he. Obviously when one sense is impaired, the rest become far more acute. He has spent so many years relying on all his other senses, that he can get from A to B with incredible ease and confidence, with his walking stick in hand. However, he takes a chance and places his faith in me for rally day because I am taking a chance and placing my faith in him and his ability to get me to the place I need to be at the end of the race. It’s a mutual trust thing and it’s a brilliant way to force you to walk around in someone else’s shoes. You really feel what they go through and you get a small taste of the frustration they must feel at times. Visually able people take so much for granted. I wonder how I would handle it if I lost my ability to see. It would be a challenge I’m not sure I’d be up to facing.

Andre is a lawyer. He had his own practice for many years up until a few months back when he decided to join another firm. He lives on his own and he is self-sufficient in every way. He travels often with his work, he’s highly intelligent and has a busy social life. I’ve just described thousands of other South African men BUT add “visually impaired” to that list and things change considerably. It’s never been an obstacle to Andre and I can only stand in awe of his achievements and his ability to face life’s challenges head-on. He participates in rallies, like this, throughout the year, often winning them.

Let me explain how the rally works for those who have never experienced one. A rally is not a race based on speed. It is a race based on strategising and calculating and requires patience and quick thinking. The complicated part of the rally is that you are on public roads so there are many factors to take into consideration like traffic, road works and traffic lights. There is also the possibility that the navigator may misunderstand the instructions which is an easy thing to do when you are thinking of so many things at once. I have obviously never read a navigating schedule on account of the fact that it’s all in Braille! However, an example of one of the instructions Andre gives to me goes something like this: “You will reach a speed sign reading 120km, when your odometer reads 59.5, slow your speed to 60kms per hours for 5kms.” When you leave the start, you have to zero your odometer and from then on you figure out where you are supposed to be and what you’re supposed to do based on the odometer readings that they give you as part of the instructions. However, if you miss a turn and have to come back to find the route, that adds to your distance on the odometer and from then on you have to start adding which just adds to all the other things you’re having to think about! Make two or three wrong turns and it can get extremely complicated.

Following each instruction to the letter is not always so simple because, every time you get stuck at a traffic light you have to calculate how much time you have wasted and then try and make up that time on another road, even if they have told you to travel only at 50kms per hour. Sometimes you get stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. (At this point rally drivers have been known to take advantage of yellow lines and unsuspecting other drivers on the road!) Of course, one cannot forget that the navigator is blind. They have no idea if you have made the turn or not until you tell them and, at times, the instructions are slightly vague which means it could be one of a few things and you will have to make a quick choice. Your navigator can’t help you with any more that what is written on the page because they can’t see, so you have to do some improvising. On top of all THAT, my navigator is also hard of hearing which requires me repeating a lot of things. The problem with that is that some of the instructions come within 50 metres of each other and there is very little time to convey everything before you are supposed to take a turn off. It can be a highly stressful situation and the exercise here is patience; which is another good lesson to learn from the Pioneer Rally.

The aim of the rally is to finish the race in the time designated to you. Each car leaves the start at one minute intervals and, from then on you probably won’t see much of the other cars until the end of the rally. You go through 6 check points altogether, along the route, including the start and the finish and you have to reach each checkpoint within your designated time. For each second that you’re out, you lose points. If you arrive at the finish line ahead of car number 2, there is a chance you arrived too soon and you probably aren’t going to feature in the top 3. Then again, car number 2 could have gotten lost, in which case you may be right on time. It’s important to NOT worry about the other rally cars because their calculations will always be different to yours. It’s actually impossible to know how you fared in the race until the prize giving.

The first rally I did with Andre, as I said before, was a bit overwhelming. However, with very little understanding of the process, we succeeded in coming 3rd and, by the end of the day, I was hooked! I asked to do it again the following year and I also asked that Andre be my navigator again. We had swapped email addresses and numbers and started keeping in regular contact with each other. The second year we made some pretty serious mistakes and ended up coming 16th. Undaunted, I asked to do it again the following year. That year was possibly one of the hardest rallies I’ve ever done because I was also asked to perform at the gala dinner.

Between organising my band and rehearsals, getting the equipment and musicans to Worcester and making sure Andre was sorted, I barely had time to focus on the race. I also didn’t eat from 7am until about 8pm that night because I ran out of time to get myself anything and the only food available at the start of the rally, was beef, which my digestive system has never allowed me to digest! For that reason, I haven’t eaten beef for over 10 years and I wasn’t about to make myself ill just before the race. My only option was to go hungry but that made focusing extremely hard during the race. I made several wrong turns due to misunderstandings, ending up, at one stage, at a toll gate that I wasn’t supposed to be at. Despite other cars around me I didn’t think twice. I flung the car into reverse and floored it at about 100kms per hour weaving in and out of queuing cars. Spinning around mid-driving I crossed over the middle of the highway and headed back in the right direction losing only about a minute at the end of it all. Despite the mistake, that maneuver definitely sealed our partnership for Andre and he now has absolute faith in me as a driver! Although he couldn’t see anything, he realised something was wrong and, with my running commentary and the urgency in my voice, he knew I was under some serious strain! Andre still talks about it at every opportunity;)

By the end of the race my blood sugar was so low that my head was permanently buzzing and it felt like the world was slightly tilted. I still had to see to Andre and then get to the venue to do soundcheck and then back to the hotel to get myself dressed and ready to make an entrance with the other drivers. I am not sure how I actually made it through that day but all was forgotten when they announced the winners; me and Andre! I still don’t know how it happened with the drama of the day but it all made winning extremely worthwhile.

There was never a question of coming back again the following year to defend my title. What I didn’t expect was that there were definitely a few bruised male egos after my win the previous year and I wasn’t sure how to take that. I decided eventually to take it as a compliment;) I hadn’t come to win, I’d come to have fun the way I did every year. If I was competing with anyone, it was with myself. It’s how I’ve always been with anything I do. However, I know how much it means to Andre and, for that reason as well, I try and better my game every year. His face just lights up when we do well and that is one of the most rewarding things for me.

I was completely prepared for the race this time. I had a bag of chicken biltong and some cashews and dark chocolate to keep my energy levels up. I even made a flask of green tea to sip on during the race! (I learn from my mistakes thank goodness!) The race started off with an immediate delay when a car decided to pull out of his parking right in front of me just as the whistle blew for me to pull off from the starting point atAudi Centre at the V & A waterfront. A car’s hooter has never been used as much as mine has during a race;) With that delay, and a few red traffic lights, we decided to up the requested speed of 80kms per hour to 100kms per hour for a while. We were slowed down further when the course took us through several town centres and we hit a lot of traffic and several traffic lights.

It’s moments like these that I am very happy to be driving an Audi Quattro A5, 3.2 litre! Having lost much time in traffic, I needed to make up some time! Let me just state, for the record, that I am usually a very considerate driver! I keep to the speed limit and I allow other driver’s space if they need a gap but, on rally day, I drive like all the drivers on the road that I despise;) In short, I drive like an asshole;) (there is no word that fits better!) I weave in and out and take every gap I can find. When you’re doing a race you don’t have time to be considerate. Time is of the essence. I often joke to Andre that it’s a good thing he can’t see what I’m doing or he might have a stroke in the first 10 minutes of the race!

Fortunately the car has enough signage on it for most people to realise it’s a rally car and we very seldom have anyone give us a hard time. The embarrassing part comes when Andre tells me I need to do no less than 120kms per hour and I have to drive right on people’s bumpers to keep to that speed and then, 2 minutes later he tells me I need to slow down to 80kms per hour and those same people I forced aside, then come past me, looking at me like I’m completely mental and occasionally making a few rude signs in my direction! I can only laugh. In the end things like that don’t really matter. What matters is Andre’s face when we win.

At one stage of the race we were told to take the R44 to Franschoek. That is all well and good except that the only sign I could see for Franschoek was the R45! When I urgently told this to Andre he said, there must be another road further on. The navigation couldn’t be wrong. However, the turn for the R45 was exactly where the turn for the R44 was supposed to be, according to our odometer. I was pretty convinced they’d made a typo. (even in Braille, it happens!) However, Andre is the navigator and he said we need to keep going until we see the R44. After driving for probably 5 minutes I said I think we need to turn back and take the R45! He wasn’t completely convinced but I was and the handbrake turn told him he had no choice but to trust me;) If you have never driven an Audi A5 Quattro, you can’t possibly understand how it felt to cover those lost 5 minutes in less than one minute! We were low flying but I was determined to make up the time! A short while after being on the R45, the instructions were fitting which meant we were right. There was a typo on the navigation schedule. The only consolation was that EVERYONE had lost time there with the confusion and we still had a chance of making it up. The rest of the race was spent ignoring all the speed limit instructions while I drove far too fast through a few mountain passes. One of the many advantages of the Audi Quattro is that it’s a 4 wheel drive and it corners like nobody’s business! It’s the only reason I was able to drive like I did. We came racing into the finish line and it was over all too quickly. All we could do now was wait.

It was a long dinner for the two of us. Most of the time was spent discussing where we’d gone wrong and where we’d been right and weighing up all the pros and cons. I could sense Andre’s tension but I’d already decided we wouldn’t be placed this time. We’d made a few mistakes and that R44 debacle left everything up in the air. Nearly everyone had the same question for us, “So, do you think you nailed it this time?” I just smiled in response. To calm our nerves we enjoyed the steady stream of red wine being poured at our table;)

Suddenly, the moment arrived. I grabbed Andre’s hand and we held on tight as they began working their way from 41st place down to 1st. Every number they called out, my heart stopped beating for a split second. When we were down to 10th place Andre gave a little smile and I squeezed his hand. I would be happy with anything after 10th place. Then it was 9th, 8th, 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd… could this really be happening?! 2nd place was announced and there it was. We were 1st! Incredulous faces turned in our direction but I was throwing my arms around Andre and he was smiling from ear to ear and there were congratulations all around and then we were getting our trophies and cameras were flashing and we were both just grinning from ear to ear. The rest of the night is a blur after that!

I still don’t know how it happened but I’m pretty happy that it did! Andre went home smiling and I flew back to Jhb with my trophy in hand, feeling like I’d really accomplished something. I found out a bit later that Andre and I had 688 seconds error and the runner up’s time had 1160 seconds error so I think I have the Audi Quattro to thank for that big lead! I recently heard rumours that some of the other teams want to break up mine and Andre’s partnership and hearing that makes me a bit sad. I offered to drive for another navigator next year to keep the peace but the organisers don’t see the point of breaking up a good friendship and partnership. The point of the rally is not winning but the lessons we take away from it. I can’t deny it’s a good feeling winning, but I’d enjoy it just as much if I lost. Every year I leave there learning something new about myself, about life and about people. These are all lessons I value and that I carry with me from day to day.

Andre and I will be there next year to defend our title and, no doubt, we will have tougher competition from those who are determined to knock us off our perch and, guess what? I’ll fall off happily knowing that I did the best I could, and I had a good time doing it. If we win, it’ll be a wonderful bonus for us and I’ll make Andre a happy man in the process. I think that two wins, two years in a row is something for us to be proud of and, at the very least, definitely proof that women CAN drive;)

September 2011 saw the release of Melanie’s 4th studio album to date, I CHOOSE ME. A far rockier, more honest look at her life through song, Melanie has stripped herself of all her previous personas and taken a deep, hard look at the woman she has become.

This year, Melanie became the first female celebrity to take part in a same-sex marriage after grappling to come to terms with people’s perceptions. As a household name taking such a bold step, she has laid herself bare to the public and has been met with much support and respect by not only the gay community, but the rest of the country as well. The title track, I CHOOSE ME, not only speaks to people battling with sexuality issues, but speaks bluntly to anyone who’s ever questioned themselves. A stunning, rocky confession with frank honesty, the song lays the foundation for the rest of this brilliantly written and produced record.

Co-produced by the legendary Tree63 front man John Ellis, the album maintains a far more organic and raw sound than her previous work. In Melanie’s own words, “a little more rough around the edges than usual.” Slightly less polished and far fresher than her previous bodies of work, Melanie has combined honesty with experience and created an album that speaks to just about anyone who has loved, been hurt, grown and changed.

All round the album is a new Melanie, a fresh Melanie and a far more determined Melanie. She not only has a brand new image to boot, but she has an inner peace that comes across in a positively fierce and focused way, and that is something you will want to see for yourself!

Come and experience the new Melanie and her talented band live on the 3rd November at FashionTV, Cedar Square, brought to you by SAMSON and Gaysure. Pre-book your ticket by emailing az.oc.ewoleinalemnull@ahsatan and stand in line to win SAMSON microphones and STAGG guitars! Cds and other Melanie Lowe merchandise will be on sale.