I have written songs and poems ever since I was a youngster.

Many of them relate to the events in the farming calendar and to characters I knew within the farming community.

My father, a hill shepherd, was a remarkable man in so many ways, and his extraordinary adventures have featured in several of my works.

I think of myself more as a storyteller, who happens to use the medium of song to relate interesting tales.

My passion for animals has been with me since childhood, as has my love of travel and visiting new places.

My wanderlust has taken me from the high Andes to the Galapagos Islands; from Canada’s Rocky Mountains to the towering sea stacks of St Kilda; from the Great Wall of China to the Pyramids and the Nile Valley; from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rain forest: from New Zealand’s geothermal wonders to the top of Mount Etna, and to so many other parts of the globe.

But the highlights of my all my travels have been in Africa. My first safari was along Kenya’s Rift Valley and into the Maasai Mara, which resulted in me being well and truly bitten by the Africa Bug. I fell in love with Africa and its people.

But the shining jewel in the crown of African wildlife experiences, for me, has been Botswana’s amazing Okavango Delta. Camping in that wilderness amongst the Delta’s lions, leopards and hyenas is an unforgettable experience.

To be awakened by a clan of hyenas ‘whooping’ right outside your tent in the middle of the night, reignites long forgotten, primitive reactions and responses, that include an urgent need to visit a toilet.

My first trip to the Okavango was in 2016.

I returned in 2019 and hope to make a third trip in May 2022.

You can read all my posts about those experiences and my closer than bargained for encounters with some of Africa’s most efficient predators.

There are slightly less scary stories to read as I explain the background to some of my songs, poems, and monologues.

I hope you find some of them of interest, some of them amusing, and some of them thought provoking.

Thank you for visiting my site.