Winter

Winter in the Western Cape: at this time of year it seems like you blink and you’ve missed it. Having grown up with those long grey English winters which linger for endless months with depressingly short days, our South African winters are a joy.

There are rain storms and bunches of grey days for sure, but in between are those jewel-like days when the sun shines, you peel off your layers and bask outside in T-shirts. You’re almost sure of at least two days a week to get your laundry dry on the line, at least we are here, with a north-facing stoep sun-trap and a nice long line.

And yet you can be chillier here than ever I remember being in England. No central heating, and in these days of electricity price hikes, no electric heaters either. Just the one ceramic fireplace to warm the whole house. When the snow is on the mountains and the wind freezing cold despite the sunshine, we huddle in more layers than the Michelin man, with hats and gloves on inside, wrapped in blankets at the computer and on the sofa. But I don’t miss that central heating one bit.

And here we have flowers in winter.

First the tiny gems of oxalis poking their heads up from the sand. Then their cousins of the oxalis family, the longer stemmed citrus yellow sorrel, join in.

These are the ones that our kids used to pick in bunches outside their kindergarten, sucking the sour lemony stems after school, while their mothers chatted and lingered.

Glowing aloes are next, hot coal embers of orange and red. 

The golden shower isn't indigenous ( Pyrostegia ignea from South America)  but it adds a brilliant wall of orange ...

and the yellow daisy bush (Chrysanthemoides monilifera) adds the last dash of sunset to the palette.

The September bush (Polygala myrtifolia) seems to flower almost all year round but its hot pinks are just that bit of clashing colour needed to avoid getting all matchy matchy.

Finally the proteas bring some subtlety to the show with their sugary pinks and sculptural form.

And the bees have a ball all through winter, gathering nectar from aloes, protea and the golden shower, so that they make it through to spring in good shape.

I took all these pictures two weeks ago and already spring is snapping at the heels of winter, chasing it onwards with a snowfall of daisies, even while the snow on the far mountains keeps us from thinking winter is completely over.

I’ll have another cluster of flower pictures very soon, as all the early spring flowers are coming out in a rush now, even as the winter ones are still in mid song.

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Grootbos Nature Reserve Part 2 - Fynbos and Philosophy

This is the second installment of our wonderful night away at Grootbos Private Nature Reserve. Read the first part here.

The view from our deck at dawn

Waking up in the morning to a dawn sky, soaking in the bath and watching colours change as the sun creeps over the hill behind us, listening to bird chatter in the fynbos, a magical start to the day at Grootbos
 

The bath tub with the best ever view

We’d planned two activities for the morning – if we’d been staying longer we would have just chosen one and had a lazy lie-in, but as it was we were at breakfast by 8 and spoilt for choice both with the buffet and the cooked to order hot breakfast.

There were cereals, muesli, yoghurt and bowls of seeds, nuts, raspberry and passionfruit puree as toppings, fruit salad, sliced fruits, cold meats and even smoked trout as well as fresh croissants and muffins. I went for a very decadent Eggs Benedict and then re-visited the buffet because I couldn’t resist the smoked trout and a croissant.

Grootbos is so much more than just a lovely five star retreat, though it does all that superbly well in a friendly and unpretentious style. I loved all the pampering, fantastic food and comfort, but it was the activities and the place itself that made the biggest impression. The nature  reserve grew out of the owner, Michael Lutzeyer’s, mission to conserve the beautiful fynbos eco-system of this region and their conservation programme has developed to an award-winning world class level. Not just that but the importance of enriching and giving back to the community here is actively recognised in two very successful social responsibility programmes.

The plant nursery at the Green Futures project

We were shown round both by Anecke, herself a graduate of the horticulture Green Futures training programme. Every year eight candidates are carefully selected from the two neighbouring communities of Stanford and Gansbaai and receive a very thorough grounding in both indigenous horticulture and basic life skills. As well as learning all about the fynbos plants and how to grow them, they learn computer skills, how to keep accounts, how to drive, language and interview skills. There is also an exchange link with the Eden Project in Cornwall UK, so every year three students get to travel there for three weeks and experience conservation  overseas.

The vegetable gardens at the Growing the Future programme

The second programme Growing the Future is aimed at local women between the ages of 18 and 35 and is a year course in growing organic vegetables and fruits. After three years this is becoming a self-sustaining initiative, growing produce to sell to the lodges, free-range chickens providing the eggs we’d just eaten for our breakfasts, bee-keeping producing delicious fynbos honey to sell in the shop and making preserves for the restaurants. Graduates from both programmes receive a nationally accredited certificate and can go on to do further training on site as guides or as lodge staff, or apply to do further horticultural training elsewhere. Many of them choose to work at Grootbos and the cheerful faces, confident and individual personalities of all the staff and guides we met are a testament to the success of the training.

Lavender for companion planting in the vegetable garden

We were whisked back to the lodge just in time to sally forth once more on our 4x4 fynbos safari with Jo, a wonderfully eccentric guide with a passion for her subject and a sprinkling of philosophy thrown in.

As we left the road and headed up a mountain trail she stopped to pick mysterious sprigs of restio, erica, protea and with hilarious deadpan anecdotes showed us so much more about how the natural fynbos eco-system works.

I’d never realised that the humble sour fig, which grows like crazy on our farm, is a vital refuge for small animals such as tortoises during fires. They can creep into its shelter and the succulent leaves protect them from the fire’s heat. I hadn’t known that restios are either male or female, that certain ericas need fire to reproduce: so many details shared in an entertaining and fascinating way. We also discovered the source of that elusive honey fynbos scent  that pervades the bush around the lodge – metalasia muricata, or its less than glamorous common name, the cauliflower bush.

Jo picking sprigs of metalasia muricata

Jo stopped the vehicle at a beautiful viewpoint for snacks, delicious home-baked cookies in four flavours, and while we were eating and chatting she wove all the plant samples picked on the way into a stunning bouquet, then turned wedding photographer to each couple in turn.

After this tour we were filled with even more respect  and admiration for how much Grootbos has done in the last 20 years to preserve, restore and protect the incredibly rich flora, gradually acquiring more land as neighbouring farms were sold, until they now have over 2000 hectares of pristine hill, milkwood forest and mountain.

The main lodge at sunset

Back at the lodge it was already lunch time, time for us to reluctantly leave, but we stayed long enough  to sample the lunch buffet, a fresh and flavoursome feast of salads with a choice of three hot mains to follow and even a dessert, though we were still too full from breakfast to make it all the way through the menu.

There were so many more activities that there just wasn’t time for in our short visit: horse riding trails through the fynbos, beach walks and picnics, a coastal cave tour, whale watching in the winter months, and of course the spa in the milkwood forest where there is no need of canned birdsong relaxation tapes, as the real thing wafts in through the open doors.

All in all I found Grootbos a thoroughly magical place to visit and the memories are sustaining me through a rather hectic week. If you get the opportunity, do not hesitate – go there and stay for as long as you can!

Fynbos bouquet

Note for my non-South African readers: fynbos is the name given to a particular type of vegetation mainly found in the southern tip of Africa. Low bushy green scrub is what it looks like to the eye, not a tree in sight. But when you look up close you find an enormous variety of different plants and flowers. Our guide, Jo, explained that to be identified as fynbos it should have four principal types of plants: proteas, ericas, restios and bulbinous plants. It’s an eco-system that supports many birds and small animals, but not a single giraffe or elephant! It's beautiful, fascinating and just as an essential item on any traveller's bucket list as the Big Five.

Disclosure: Our stay at Grootbos was complimentary, but I received no remuneration for writing this post and all opinions are my own.

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Spring Festival 2012

Our festivals have gained a momentum of their own by now, unfolding each time in different ways with very little management by us. It’s almost self-defeating to plan things in advance. We have a whole list of things we think we should be doing and then everyone arrives at the end of the afternoon rather than the beginning and it all has to be concertinaed in to fit. I’ve almost managed to stop stressing about this now. Our latest spring festival was one of those.

On some spring festivals everyone arrives before or just after lunch and the kids spend the afternoon building elaborate water sculptures in the sand-pit, other decorating the circle lusciously with flowers and a river of light (candles in brown bags) winds down to the circle. Year by year it gets more elaborate until the list of tasks to complete is almost daunting. This year it was more of an exercise in cutting it all back down to essentials. Only three families were coming and they all arrived at five o’clock or after.

The big kids were immediately despatched to tidy up the circle and the sandpit, then to gather some flowers for decoration. One friend started immediately on the archway with the help of his little kids, others started making flower crowns from real flowers as they chatted over tea. It was the first time that no-one had time to sit down at the computer and write their blessings. But it all came together.

The arch was flowery, two gorgeous vases of flowers arranged by Youngest and a friend stood at the entrance to the circle. The water bowls were clean and fresh. Everyone except the big boys (now at once too old and too young to be seen dead wearing a flower crown) had their own quirky concoction of flower crown aloft. Water was poured into bowls, flowers sprinkled on top. Blessings were said spontaneously rather than written and Middle Daughter played recorder for us at the beginning and the end.

We love it when we have a whole leisurely afternoon for preparation, but it was good to be reminded that the spirit of the festival is there however simply we decorate, however rushed the preparations.

Three quiches, two roast chickens, two plaited loaves, one large salad and a bowl of baby potatoes fed us, followed by chocolate pudding, a pavlova with the first strawberries of the season and a bakewell tart with the last frozen youngberries of last season.

The kids, who are now mostly getting too big to be called kids, all lounged on the sofas, leaving the table to the adults, and the three little kids ran around between both groups. Quote of the evening: our son looking tolerantly at toddler and four year-old running around enthusiastically: “We were like them once.” The whole weight of being fourteen was in those words! He was actually very good with them and ended up with a devoted four year old at his heels the whole evening.

Now the sunny but cool spring day has given way to a chilly wet almost winter day again, but spring has been celebrated in due style!

Because everyone arrived so late yesterday I had plenty of time to play around with my latest obsession: my phone photography apps. I've had this phone for a year now and only now have I really discovered the possibilities- instagram, picframe and a host of other addictive apps. So in between baking bread and quiches and picking flowers I  had time for photographing our elderly cat Fluff enjoying the spring sunshine.

And messing around with the bread dough.

So let me know if I go overboard with the framed photos, cos right now I'm probably having far too much fun playing with them!

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Spring Flowers, Winter Snows

It’s that time when winter and spring are fighting it out again. Spring sends sunshine to lure out the daisies, so that they carpet the ground in snowdrifts, dazzling to the eye.

Winter sends rainstorms that drum on the tin roof and close up the daisies for days on end. Winter leaves blankets of snow on distant mountains that spring lights up with sunshine as a fitting background for the dazzle of daisies.

Snow on the distant mountains, sunshine opening up the daisies

What distant mountains, rain driving across, daisies tight closed

A hare lolloping through the daisies

We peel off our layers in spring’s warm embrace, wander among the flowers and make daisy chains.

Only to retreat under five layers of clothes and blankets onto the sofa when winter once more gains the upper hand.

Log fires and soups one day, salads and sandwiches eaten on the stoep in the sun another, or often both on the same day.

While the rest of the country was covered in unexpected snow, we  just got rain, which peeled away to reveal snow on the mountains, but none right here, right now.

Our kids would happily exchange the daisy carpet for one of snow, just to experience it once. I prefer the daisies. But then I grew up in England and know the cold of snow-drenched toes, the thrill of sliding down a snowy slope on a sack, the joy of being snowed in and unable to go to school.

Today winter is winning, it rained all night. But spring knows that it only has to be patient. A few more weeks and winter will be a distant memory, while spring unfurls its most colourful flowers, blows hot and cold on us, brings out the miggies and horseflies just to make sure we don’t get too complacent in the midst of all that beauty.

Soon the yellow and pink daisies will join the carpet, the dazzling white will turn to gold, but somehow I have a sneaking fondness for those first hard won days of spring, with snow on the mountains and snowdrifts of daisies cheering on each day of sunshine.

Jewels of colour in the middle of all that white 

Last year's flowers were also stunning. Here are two posts if you want more flowery beauty!
Dawdling through the Daisies
Spring Flowers and Sunshine

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A Bowl of Hyacinths

Secretive bowls of earth snugly tucked up in soft green moss, just the smallest hint of a stubby shoot peeking out at gloomy winter days; a bowl of hyacinths was a standard feature in my grandmother’s sitting room in the darkest December months. There would be a log fire in the grate, dim afternoon light barely making an impression through the small window panes, tea in cups and saucers and best behaviour.

We often had a bowl of the bulbs at home too – they were great as gifts for children to give their mums or grannies for Christmas. The bulbs would gradually send up fat snouts, growing into glossy leaves hiding the beginnings of a flower. We’d peek in to try and see if it would be pink, blue or white. Then one day it would start to open and wafts of fragrance would fill the room.

I’d almost forgotten about bowls of hyacinths until my sister-in-law made herself one this year. For some reason I’d thought that South Africa didn’t have them – our winter months are so much less dark and gloomy than England’s and it’s not Christmas, something I’d always associated with hyacinths. I went into raptures as the nostalgic scent transported me back thirty years, and when we got back from holiday I found that we now had our own bowl of bulbs, thanks to my lovely SIL.

The first two flowers are now open already. Do they grow more rapidly here, or is the remembered slow progress and weeks of anticipation just a feature of time passing more slowly when you’re a child? Anyway the first two flowers are white ones and as fragrant as I remembered. In our huge living room the scent isn’t overwhelming, coming in wafts as you pass the table. The house has never smelled so sweet before! This is definitely a new winter tradition to keep alive in our family.

I've also written about hyacinths over at Green Living Tips as a natural alternative to air fresheners.

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