NEWS & ANALYSIS

I'll be back

David Bullard says his column will resume once the trauma of leaving Joburg has passed

Blessed are the shack dwellers, because they carry no baggage

Last weekend I did some very strange things. I took every article I have ever written down to the local dump and put it with the waste paper. Exactly where it belongs I'm sure many of you will agree.

Over the years I had snipped out everything I ever wrote from my very first Out to Lunch column for the Sunday Times in 1994, including all the magazine articles I wrote (and I wrote regular columns over the years for at least twenty very diverse magazines including Wine, Leadership, Style, Femina and Fair Lady), seven years of car reviews and the more recent food and travel pieces I had written for Prestige magazine.

They were all neatly stored in indexed plastic envelopes and the whole lot filled a box large enough for twelve bottles of wine. As I fed my entire oeuvre into the mouth of a large, bell shaped waste paper receptacle I felt a brief pang of regret. And then they were all gone, swirling around with old newspapers and books waiting to be pulped.

I also burned letters from family and loved ones going back thirty years, gave away my entire record collection (going back 45 years) to a former colleague and sold some of my furniture and favourite paintings. The move to Cape Town has made me realise how much "stuff" I have accumulated over the past twenty years and getting rid of it is proving an interesting, and at times emotional, experience.

Which is just a way of saying that I have been so busy downsizing, packing, taking stuff to charities, stressing about the move and completely ignoring the news that I have absolutely no energy or enthusiasm left to write a column at the moment. The column will be back (internet connectivity permitting) just as soon as I can manage.

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter