<p>As a child, my playground was the wide-open veldt with the blue African sky above. Jungle gyms grew naturally from seed and the pet store was just beyond the garden gate. I wore shoes under protest and then only to school and church. I absolutely needed a bath every night.</p><p/><p>After high school, I served as an operational medic for two years and treated everything from massive trauma to deadly disease. I've swum in the crocodile-infested Okavango and seen entire villages succumb to malaria. I have tracked poachers and listened from my sleeping bag to hunting lions prowling beyond the firelight.</p><p/><p>Life is tamer now. I live onboard a Seamaster cabin boat in the heart of England, enjoying the garden-like rural landscape. Fortunate to have the life-experience I have, I draw greedily on it when writing of the lives of men and women in a very much wilder Europe.</p>
