The reason for all these new insights and things would be my affectionately-known (as amongst my friends) “Cankle“. This phenomenon happens when you manage to twist your ankle so badly, it ends up looking like a calf and ankle combined. I achieved this jumping down a rock-climbing wall without looking at what was below me. Oh, well, lesson learned. My park-ranger climbing buddy cracked proper jokes at my expense directly after, which is as it should be among men. This gave me the opportunity to test the theory that swearing makes pain more manageable. It really does, as a matter of fact.

Luckily I seem to be back to my normal mountain-walking, rock-climbing,  singing self now, and much the happier for it. I tend to do all this with a certain wonderful someone, but let me not mention her. Yes, I am being vague on purpose. **secret smile**

My brother and I are coming much closer to a consensus of what we want to put on our first CD, and yes, after all that spirited conversation, I am glad we can move on to other things. And if you wanted to know about the vuvuzela-bombardment… well, we performed at the World Cup events (Fanwalk, Fanfest, and another venue, more on that on our facebook fanpage), and during this one performance I made the… unwise… decision to say “…and tonight, blow your vuvuzelas in support of your team!” I did not get as far as “…in support…”, even. 5000 vuvuzelas were raised as one, and the shockwave of sound that hit me was quite… impressive. Oh, well, lesson learned.

We have chosen a name for ourselves. Yes, world, from now on forth, we will be known as Silwer (which means Silver, but it’s the Afrikaans spelling, as I am sure you know). It is an elegant and beautiful name that we can both identify with and love. Also, our mother likes it, which turned out to be a big thing. Of all the people involved with the naming process, I have to admit, she was the most enthusiastic. (Thanks, mom!) There are reasons that we chose it that I won’t mention here (I will at  some other time ), but for now we have it, love it, and have been performing with it. I love it when people introduce us on stage with something like …. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, brothers Willem and Louis frooooom Silwer!” Gives me a wonderful sense of anticipation and joyfulness when I hear that.

We also have a new website! Please check out www.SilwerMusic.com. Awesome things there would be audio clips from a couple of songs we have recorded that we hope to put on our first CD, some youtube clips, and some photos of recent performances.

And the last thing…. we are in for the FIFA entertainment! This was all organised through PANSA, and we can’t wait to sing in and around the Cape Town events. Thank you South Africa, and go Bafana Bafana!

Ps. Yes, I have been walking the mountains like a mad zen mountain walker, as always. And I am slightly surprised by the fact that I now see a 18km day hike as “something fun to do on a Saturday”.

Be well, everyone.

Willem and I have been getting together on a daily basis, learning new songs, talking about music, life, love… you know, the important things. And while we were doing this we received many many invitations to sing at different events, concerts, even a few birthdays and weddings, which we of course immediately said yes to, and loved doing! We were also on the new-years episode of Top Billing (that’s a whole different story, though.) And things are heating up.

We are about ready to start recording a CD, and having learned a lot about the music industry in general the past few months, we are looking for sponsors to sponsor this first CD. More importantly to us, though, is that we have put together what we lovingly call “Our First Show” (more perform-y type name to follow later), and we are very excited at the prospect of organizing shows, and singing for people…

In the meantime, if your were wondering, yes, we are now both full-time singers, the culmination of years of dreaming about it, becoming our very own reality. We love what we do.

In between all this I have been hiking all over the western cape, I have met some amazing people, and I am  enjoying my life, as usual. So, there you have it.

Thank you for reading!

-Louis

Ps. En dankie weereens vir almal wat ons tot dusver ondersteun en gehelp het, dit word altyd, inniglik, waardeer.