So this is my site. Nothing fancy, nothing polished. Just somewhere to put things down when I feel like it.
I'm Ollie. I work in marketing, have done for years. Campaigns, strategy, the kind of work that lives in a laptop and occasionally drives you round the bend. It keeps me in groceries and a roof over my head, and most days I genuinely enjoy it. That's more than most people can say, so I'm not complaining.
That's the day to day. But there's another side to things that's harder to explain without sounding like I'm being deliberately mysterious, which I'm not trying to be. The truth is just that some of what I do can't really be talked about, at least not while it's happening. It's not military, nothing like that. I work in and around the gold industry, security side of things, and leave it there.
Once or twice a year, sometimes a bit more, I disappear for a while. A message comes through, plans get made quickly, and I go. I don't always know where I'm headed until I'm nearly there. I don't know how long I'll be gone. I don't talk about it while it's happening, and when it's done I'll say something general about it if I feel like it, but the detail stays with me.
These are not soft deployments. I'm not babysitting a perimeter or standing in a lobby in a suit. The work is serious, it's physically demanding, and it carries real risk. I train consistently because that's not something you can fake when the moment arrives. I stay sharp because you need to be. There are situations where I carry weapons and where using them is part of the job. I'll leave the elaboration at that.
The thing people find odd, if they know about it, is how quickly normal life resumes when I get back. You'd think there'd be a longer adjustment but there usually isn't. A few days, maybe. Then the emails are back, the briefs are back, someone needs copy reviewed and the deadline was yesterday. You make a brew and you get on with it. That transition has actually got easier over the years, not harder. I think you just get wired for it eventually.
I'm in my late thirties now and I've been doing both sides of this life for long enough that it doesn't feel like two separate things anymore. It's just how things are. The two sides exist in the same person, they just never overlap. Different headspace, different skillset, same bloke.
Anyway. The site.
This site is about the other stuff. The part of my life that doesn't fit on a CV or come up in polite conversation. When I get back from a gig and there are things rattling around in my head that need somewhere to go, this is where they go. Not the detail, not the specifics, but the thoughts. What it feels like to operate in environments where the stakes are real. How you prepare mentally and physically for something you can't fully predict. What you notice about yourself and other people when the pressure is genuine rather than manufactured. The way your perspective shifts after you've spent time in places most people will never see, doing things most people will never do.
There will be posts about training, about staying sharp, about the mindset that makes this kind of work possible. There will be reflections on specific trips once enough time has passed and I feel comfortable putting something down. There will probably be thoughts on the broader world, the kind of observations you only make when you have been on the ground in places that don't make the news in the way they should.
None of it will be sensationalised. That is not how I operate and it is not what this is for. But it will be honest, and it will be the real version of things rather than a sanitised one.
This isn't a professional thing. There's no angle here, nothing being sold. I've got enough of that in the actual work. This is just somewhere to write when something's worth writing about. Mates who want to see what I'm thinking, people I've worked with, people I've met along the way.
Anyway, that is enough for now. I can never say exactly when the jaunts were. Just know there have been several to date. Nothing I can put down yet, maybe not for a while. But I will when I can.
For now I am back home, back to normal, eating decent food and sleeping in my own bed. Simple things. You appreciate them more than you'd think.
The phone is quiet at the moment. That won't last forever but I am not rushing it. When it rings I'll go, same as always. Until then this is where I'll be, and this is where I'll put things when I feel like putting them somewhere.
Ollie