December at home means queues at the Waterfront and a diary that will not sit still. December in Argentina means high summer on the other side of the Atlantic, a city that eats at ten and dances later, and an estancia where the loudest thing all afternoon is a horse. A South African passport walks in visa free. This is the trip we keep drawing on napkins for clients, so we have written it down properly.

I want to start with something honest. Writing this piece is not entirely comfortable. Not because the subject is difficult, although it is, but because it requires a kind of vulnerability that does not come naturally to someone who has spent two decades in the quiet, professional business of making other people’s lives run smoothly.