Preparing to Speak.

Today I am about to embark on my preparation for 'The Talk'.

I shall need the books I used


the notes I made


and the photographs I took


to construct an illustrated talk about the research I did for my Patagonian novel.

There is so much here that it is difficult to know where to start. I look at a photo or start reading my notes, and immediately I am away, far from my desk, back in that cold desert with the guanaco munching on some frazzled weed and a flock of rhea skittering madly away across the pampas.