I have generally not suffered from the inertia that they label ‘writer’s block’. There have been times when I have had to search for a character or revise a plot but usually a solution comes, even if I have to modify it later.
But my latest book, with the working title, Fathers and Sons. The Legacy of Honour and Duty, has taken me to a place which requires an enormous amount of research into an occupation that I have no real experience of and that has halted the writing of the story for nearly a month.
What has that got to do with the cover photograph of this letter? A friend of ours invited us to join her at a private lodge in Madikwe Game Reserve on the Botswana border. And her husband asked if I would do a photo album to capture memories of the holiday.
Photo albums are pure escape for me. I love them. They give me the opportunity to combine my two affections: writing and photographing. The cover photo is one of the images in the album.
Here are some more:
These three pictures were taken at Tlou Dam, elephant heaven on the North West plains of Madikwe where our lodge was situated and which we visited almost daily over the six days we spent in the park.
Dawn reflections of the rim-flow pool at Tree Frog Lodge and a Pied Babbler in the grounds of the lodge, its claw as scaly as the paperbark tree.
Wonderful to see so many Rhino together, and with their horns intact.
There was a small pride of lion in our area, the leader a female, and including another older female, an adolescent male and two cubs. We saw them nearly every day, and only on day three did we see the cubs which the lioness had been hiding for their safety. The young male is already magnificent, belly full, panting. The second picture is illustrative of the love of mother and child.
Our second last night, coming off a ridge to the south of our lodge. The striations in the sunset sky, the city lights of Gaborone across the border and the dimmed lights of the Land Cruiser provide a good ending to this letter.
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