Durban – Page 2 – sea.ess.em.jay

The 031 Comes Alive | Durban Digital Day

Now this…THIS I am excited about!

Coming up on 31 October, the very first Durban Digital Day takes place at The Factory Cafe.

With a jampacked agenda, and a flurry of Durban’s brightest stars in digital and online, I’m really excited to listen to these amazing minds share their wisdom.

Put together by the clever minds at FalconsCove and DeathbyDigital Advertising, Durban Digital Day seeks to do the one thing we have all been waiting for – give Durban voices a true platform on the national and global landscape.

: Image by Sandile Nene, captured from Durban Digital Day website.

I’m looking forward to hearing from:

Mike Saunders – Mike heads up Digitlab and has recently done some incredible research into the importance of parenting in a digital age. I am really going to enjoy his talk!

The Blogger Panel, which features: Bob Perfect (the man behind the great Durban is Yours) and Nadia van der Mescht (the power-creative who spends a lot of her time helping other people make their dreams come true!

Kirsty Bisset and Barry Tuck – I was really lucky to spend some time with Kirsty recently, and am rather keen to get her and Barry’s insights into building brands online.

Johnathan Darker – the man behind the 2013 6th Annual Innovation Summit and founder of Invent SA, Johnathan will be chatting about “Commercialising your Intellectual Property”. Something I do need to learn more about!

The brilliant dudes over at Death by Digital, Cade and Glen, will also be sharing their brilliant insights, and Glen will be MC-ing this brilliant day.

Fred Felton, who I’ve been lucky to work with on a few things, including the Durban leg of the Twitter Blanket Drive, will be taking us through Twitter for Business, and facilitating the blogger workshop too.

I know the organisers have quite a few more aces to play, and as we get closer to Durban Digital Day, I can’t wait to see what will be revealed!

Screen shot 2013-10-14 at 10.00.16 AM — This is me, obviously.

And me?

Aside from being truly stoked to be part of this great event, and incredibly honoured to be on the schedule, I’ll be there to chat about why what you write defines how you are judged and perceived online. But I won’t be stopping there – because I have a few tricks up my wizard’s sleeve. I can’t wait to show you!

Visit the Durban Digital Day website for more information and you can buy your tickets here.

See you there!

The Xef

Our family fancies itself as wannabe-foodies. We have our favourite restaurants, favourite meals and top routines. But there’s something we love more than our usuals and that is discovering a new haunt or a clever little meal!

On Saturday night, we found both!

The Xef is a cafe, located at 124 Florida Road, open throughout the day and well into the night. With a focus on healthy and delectable meals (and a strong focus on vegan and vegetarian menu items!), The Xef is owned by Justin Nanak and his family. Justin decided to follow his foodie dream a few months ago, and the proof of that is – no, really! – in the pudding!

Beautifully decorated, with a relaxed atmosphere, The Xef has big plans to add on a sundeck and host events soon.

But what about the food? We had the *most* divine “cheat pizza” for dinner. Each meal is made fresh so you may wait a little bit for your food. It’s totally, totally worth it though.

For dessert, I had the most incredible red velvet cupcake and the Shmoo had this ridiculously nom chocolate pudding.

I think what made The Xef stand out for us was the fact that the owner’s passion for food and service is evident, in every part of the dining experience.

Thanks to Justin and his family for a wonderful evening. We will be back soon!

(This is not a sponsored post. This is an honest review and I received no compensation for it)

Good Food and Wine Show – Durban

Today and tomorrow, you can still enjoy the Good Food and Wine Show in Durban.

We spent Thursday evening armed with large cocktails and wearing comfortable shoes as we went exploring through this little piece of foodie heaven (sidenote – I like to think of myself as a foodie, but mostly I realise that I just like eating).

Here’s my little list of the top three stands you MUST stop by:

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The Original Cocktails stand. Because, have you ever seen a better way to drink cocktails? No, I don’t think you can top this.

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The Nicoletta stand because everybody needs to eat cookies that say I love you.

The Drakensberg Chocolate Memories stand, because you have not eaten chocolate until you’ve eaten this.

Here’s my survival tips:

1. Wear comfortable shoes.

2. Know your floor plan so you don’t wander around aimlessly hoping to find the stand you saw at the beginning and can’t remember where it was now because you’re overwhelmed by awesomeness.

3. Take a large bag. Those hefty shopper totes are essential for this excursion.

We will be back next year! Thanks to Original Cocktails for our tickets!

eight was great.

I’ve been promising to publish this for a while. So, today’s the day I will actually knuckle down and do it.

As my kid approached her eighth birthday, the excitement built in our home like a firecracker ready to burst.

I did one thing differently this year, in comparison to every other birthday. I outsourced *everything*. And it’s never worked better! Remind me, next year, to do the same!

We created butterflies out of transparency sheets and waterpaints (thank you My mother-out-law for this!)

The marvellous folks over at PixelSlave created the invitations, which I’ll let you spy a little of here:

(Just so you know, they’re responsible for some more very-big-prettiness coming this way soon too…watch this space!)

I then commandeered the services of Durban’s delicious bunch over at Just Dandi. Deenie and Sandy took care of the all-important party packs, snacks for the big people and made sure everything ran smoothly on the day (which included sitting by the entrance and making sure no kids went running out – these people are stars). They not only took the time to really understand our requirements, but also have a very real interest in ensuring that this wasn’t ‘just another party’.

IMG-20130621-WA0011 — Cupcakes. They’re Awesome.

Between myself and my beloved helper, Ellen, we baked and packed snacks for the kids. We were blessed to receive a little gift from The Cupcake Lady herself! Angel’s legendary icing topped off our cupcakes! Thank you Angel.

And as for the venue – it’s amazing. The school operates as an educational institution during the week, but over the weekends the venue is made available to hire for birthday parties.

No birthday party would be complete without a cake. And what a flipping cake. I said to my wonderwoman Shari “we need pink and purple butterflies”. What she produced was – very simply – out of this world. I’ll leave it to the picture to explain.

Cam party 08 wmark — Cake by Shari of Strawberry Delights.

As for these gorgeous pictures? They’re all the magic of one Diane Cassells Pictures. She’s a photographic magician. This is fact.

Thank you, most of all, to all of you who were with us for this special day in our little person’s life. You made it the birthday of her dreams.