Breakfast with the Brontes

Book excerpt: When Jeannie and Alastair take a leap of faith, leaving England and the corporate rat-race to settle in the Argentine outback, Jeannie describes the challenges in her letters home. There is plenty to cope with in their new life on a cattle-ranch on the edge of the pampa, ranging from arsenic and too much fluor in the water, rampaging storms with egg-sized hailstones, wild boar in the corn, pumas at the sheep, armadillos under the lawn, snakes under the sofa, and bees invading the bedroom , not to mention 'things that go bump in the night.' And the loneliness. But there is much to be learned and to explore, especially on their travels up-country to the northern provinces and down to Patagonia. Just as they are beginning to feel settled in, all hell breaks loose over some distant islands in the South Atlantic ...