Grey water 2

New Year Resolution for our garden. Waste less water. Keep our rain in our garden, with rainwater tanks and swales the right way (Tx Janie). Use the washing water AGAIN in the garden. First prize – use LESS water, for there isn’t enough to go around. And unlike energy, there IS no alternative to water.

We collect as much grey water as we can use. The final rinse from the washing machine, always, unless it is pouring with rain. The soapy washing water is much better than nothing when it is around 30C. And thru the summer, when the roses or the fruit trees are due for their weekly watering, we also collect bath/shower water.

Quick recap from September’s post on grey water.

 Remember – use grey water today, at the very latest, TOMORROW.

 No kitchen water, because of grease and food.

 Don’t use grey water on leaves that you want to eat (herbs and salad).

Our grey water system works well. If we would collect all the grey water that 2 green adults produce, it would be too much for the four legged watering system to distribute. No lawn here to swallow water that isn’t available, in all honesty. So we have a simple on/off tap. We can collect when we need to, and divert into the sewers what we cannot distribute in our garden.

Our roses get 10 litres each a week. If it is very hot, then their week has only 5 days! Small problem. I need about 330 litres  for my 33 rose bushes. (22 refugees could survive for a day on that). Before I had to use my little gold hammer, AKA a wedding ring, to tap the 500 litre tank. Trying to guess at what height, the echo sounded hollow. Now thanks to the Rebel Gardener in Melbourne, Australia for this idea. His Tip 3 – add a gauge, using a T-piece. We are no longer left bickering about whether I get the water for the roses, or he gets it for the apple trees. Wails – WHY DID YOU USE ALL THE WATER, I NEEDED IT! We can have a frightfully adult conversation. There’s 240 litres left, will you, or shall I???

And since it is a little gold hammer I used. The roses are all Germiston Gold. A disappointing straw colour, faded in the force of the summer sun. Then in autumn revealing its true mustardy orangey gold colour!

From African water  How much water do people need? by Les Roberts, who lectures at the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says a per capita allocation of 7 litres per person per day should be regarded as the minimum 'survival' allocation. This quantity will be raised to 15 litres per day as soon as possible. Millions of refugees throughout the world currently receive between 7 and 15 l/p/d. There was a steady association between consuming more water and experiencing less diarrhoea among children, in a camp where faecal-oral diseases were the main cause of death. [Why?] Unfortunately, the answer will most often be because someone, somewhere, with a flush toilet and hot shower, does not think that the extra investment to provide sufficient water is really worth it.

And I leave you to consider – how many litres of filtered and treated drinking water do I use every day?

 Do I waste? Do I contaminate with paint, oil, old medicines??

 And the water that agriculture and industry uses on my behalf?? 

While a child dies from simple lack of clean water???

Dozen for Diana 1 - Dusty Miller

Here is an open invitation to Northern hemisphere gardeners

(mining and whoaning) asking what shall I post about in winter.

To all gardeners ...

Look back to when you first moved to your new garden, or look across to your new neighbour.

If you had known then, what you know now,

what would have been the first thing you planted?

The plant you LOVE, happy in your soil and climate, and you can spread it around?

What has become your signature plant?

No time limit on this. Please leave a comment when you have chosen!

(This was first posted on 6th September)

Dusty Miller - Centaurea cineraria

What do I love and want in my garden, however small it is? What did I dig up, or take cuttings, when we left the first garden for this one? What will I take when we move to the third garden? Since it is my list, first, the plants must appeal to me. Earn their place in my garden. Second, they must be happy with the long hot summer and wet winter of a Mediterranean climate. Double points if they are South African fynbos, but some exotic aliens are invited. And I will water worthy plants through the summer, but the plant has really got to earn my sweat and exhaustion.

Third, got to have something special –

beautiful foliage,

colourful flowers to pick,

fragrance,

wildlife friendly,

edible,

pioneer.

I am imagining a smallish, townhouse/courtyard garden with space for a small tree, a few shrubs, some fillers, and a bit of groundcover. No lawn! A few herbs. Somewhere to sit, with a tiny pond. A new garden, a blank canvas, which needs to be gardened as soon as possible.

Dusty Miller. Centaurea cineraria (but the jury is still out, on the naming of this plant ...). I love this plant for its silver feather leaves – beautiful as a halo around a posy, when giving flowers to your friends. Also beautiful in the garden, when it reaches just the right size, in a year or so, it is a silver fountain, a focal point beyond compare. Of course if you blink, the Dusty Millers have a debauched evening, loll all over their neighbours, and take over the paths. Before they get that far, keep taking

cuttings, so you always have plants of a satisfying size, and rip out the old, tired originals. This is one of those perfect pioneer plants for a new garden. It can provide the harmony of repeated focal points, a silver wave, or a gentle informal hedge.

And yes, it does have a soft two tone thistle flower.

This is a true Mediterranean plant, an exotic alien, but it sure looks like one of ours!

Waiting ... for Lunch OR Murder Most Foul!

A Victorian melodrama in three acts

(This is my favourite post. 

The one that was such fun to write!

 First posted on 24th August.)

Act 1. Waiting …

Meet the Assassin – a flower/crab spider Thomisus sp., dressed in his sombre business suit. Company policy allows only three colours - yellow, pink, or white (takes the spider only 2 days to change his suit, for the next “client”). Well, they must appear sober to the victims. Why else would Lunch visit a flamboyant forget-me-not blue table, with a vehement yellow Assassin waiting? His knife and fork raised in readiness, gun at the ready, dagger drawn? (In a Pink suit)  They do say bees see colours differently to us. There are nectar guides visible to bees in the ultraviolet part of the colour spectrum – so there are two colours, bee violet and bee purple, which we are unable to see (Wikipedia).

Act 2. … for Lunch

Meet Lunch, also known as Eristalinus taeniops. who has dropped in for a spot of lunch – pollen and nectar. A gentle vegetarian in a cruel world (like me). Perhaps his colour vision is confused by peering through built in Venetian blinds. There is definitely something disconcerting and weird about those eyes, like goats’ eyes. They are not “normal, like us”. According to our insect book he is a hover fly “stocky, honey-bee mimic with black-barred eyes. His lunch is a “flat white or yellow flower”. Italian or Thai?

Field guide to insects of South Africa, by Mike Picker, Charles Griffiths, Alan Weaving. New edition 2004. Published by Struik

And since it is a small world – I still have some small succulents growing in my garden, which were given to me by Mike Picker. Another few years, and he would have been one of my Zoology lecturers at the University of Cape Town.

Act 3. Murder Most Foul!

Avert your eyes children. There are blood and guts for lunch. The blood and guts of Lunch. If the first Assassin does not succeed, send in the second. The Masked Crab Spider.

Synema sp. “Cream abdomen adorned with what looks like a brown skull. This colouration affords a good camouflage in vegetation. It hides amongst the vegetation and dashes out to surprise an unsuspecting insect”.

From the Iziko Museums website www.biodiversityexplorer.org/arachnids

This Assassin has garnished his business suit. Elton John style? Lime green shirt and trousers, the corporate cream jacket, with a “skull” emblazoned on it. Hey, you said we had to wear white (or yellow, or pink)! You can see Lunch has still got his proboscis out. Do you mind! I’m eating. But, sadly, children, he was eaten. And only the spider lives, happily, ever after.

The End.

PS My favourite comment. From wiseacre ... back in August

You convinced me - I'm never going to lunch with Elton John

Veltheimia capensis revisited

(This was my most popular post until Wreath at the door.

It was originally published on 12th October.

 I am returning a few posts from my archives this week)

There is a pattern here. I begin to realise that I favour flowers with weird, off-key colours. The “brown” honey flower. The “orange” wild sage. The “mermaid” Lachenalia. And this “pink” sand lily – which would be from our part of the world – Darling to Nieuwoudtville.

In the winter a rosette of gorgeous glossy deep green leaves appears from nowhere (well, I did plant the bulbs). The wavy margins ripple like a couture designed collar, worn once, and a nightmare to ever try to get it to lie right again. (No. I don’t speak from experience. I’d run a mile from clothes that try to wear me.)

Planted under trees, first the leaves and then the flowers are a delight. Finally followed by large green seed-pods. The flowers stand tall and proud, making them worthy to be in a pleasure garden.

Seeds last December

And the colour. Pink doesn’t really do it justice. It is in the pink direction, but there is a hint of salmon or coral, muted by the green tips of the flowers. And softened, as you will realise if you get up close and personal, by the “pink” being speckled over a soft taupe under layer – which gives a changeant lively effect.

This is also one of those obliging and welcome plants that spreads itself around. I have two, growing clumps – and I am sure I started with only the one plant, years ago. Another of the plants I dug up and brought with us from the Camps Bay garden.

This is related to the North’s Hyacinth and Muscari, and Eucomis (pineapple lily), Lachenalia and Ornithogallum here in South Africa. The genus is named in honour of a German patron of botany, August Ferdinand Graf von Veltheim (1741-1801). And there is info on Veltheimia bracteata – the forest lily – at www.plantzafrica.com

Looking back at - That is why this box says title Diana!

(On 10th August I discovered why my posts had no TITLES, weren't pickable. Thanks to help and prompting from other friendly Blotanists!)

        Taken in October 2006. 
       We started with trees, watched by our Elephant                                     

This is embarassing ... so Stuart says the post with the New Scientist link had a title. That one works. So I go back and look at it. I look at all that HTML code. Help! And then, as Jack says, there it was LOOKing at me all the time. Duh. When the little box says "Title?", you fill it in. Will no longer bang on about blogging. Will get back to the garden diary. Cats are happily curled up each in their own chair - but I am about to claim my place by the fire. It's raining out there. (But of course that was in August, deepest, darkest, wettest mid-winter ...)

And November 2006. Behind the plum trees we now have a pond. 
Between the gravel and the plums, a walled rose garden. 
And just to the right of the picture, we built a house.

Christmas flowers in our garden

I know that dedicated photographers take their pictures, early in the morning (or the evening) when the light is good. I am not a morning person. Like Andy Capp I say – there has to be a better way of starting the day than getting up in the morning. So. Last Sunday before church. That is usually the one day I get up early. I captured these flowers. (And there are more in our garden…)

Top to bottom. Left - deeper blue Royal Cape plumbago, yellow Courvoisier rose, yellow and orange Bulbine,  two Peace roses. Centre - two Pelargoniums, purple veined Mackaya bella, rose Pelargonium. Right - Pink Chironia baccifera, pink spotted 'Phylllis van Heerden' Ruttyspolia, a purple Streptocarpus and  blue Agapanthus 

Chapter 1. As a child we always had a (freshish) pine tree for Christmas. The needles were too long to coax and charm the hanging loops over. Was a labour of love to get any ornaments on the tree. Then it is hot, so there are needles everywhere. Just not many ON the tree itself.

Chapter 2. Nasty plastic trees, which also, shed needles everywhere.

Chapter 3. This lichen covered dead branch off our neighbour’s pecan tree. Thereby hangs a tale. First we just had it leaning in the corner, do we like it? And on the day the Ungardener brought home the new sound system, complete with large heavy speaker boxes. Yes, then, Chocolat decided he needed a quick manicure. And the Ungardener looked over my head in horror, as the tree came down. Smashed the lampshade and exploded the light bulb. Then clipped the speaker. Which crashed down my leg. But its OK, I’ve got another one on the other side.

(Note to future visitors. It is now bolted to the ground and the wall, and provides Chocolat with a perfect manicure again. Thank you!)

Living in Switzerland decades ago, the dustmen complained about people putting out Christmas trees for garbage collection. Complete with ALL the decorations. No wonder the graffiti called Zuerich – Zu reich! (= Too rich!)

For us mere mortals, our Christmas tree is like our garden. We can tell a story about each part. The koala, yes that is a koala – is from a group of Australians, when the Ungardener in a former life, was a tour guide. The blue glass pine cone is the only survivor from my childhood tree memories. The glass birds were from Switzerland, intended for an Easter tree, or a dove of peace. The brass cats, a bookmark, again Swiss handcraft. And the little black cat – I can’t imagine why the tree is LYING on the ground, curious isn’t it? Was from Liberty’s in London, and worked for me by my sister. The sisal angels, made in Bangladesh, are from the Third World shop in Zurich. And the straw stars in the window, were made by me. I live now surrounded by harvested fields of straw, but the stars are a Scandinavian, Nordic, Germanic custom. England has corn dollies. We in South Africa, just have bales of straw. Bleah!

Chironia is now covered with pink stars, but no Christmas berries yet. And as Elephant’s Eye is about gardening for wildlife, I stitch the year towards its close with this zigzag.

Sign here downloads

Today is the fourth Sunday in Advent, almost Christmas!

If you are a blogger like me, you write for yourself, yes, but it is on the web, out there, for others. And I am very curious to know if there IS anybody out there reading this. So I use a free service http://www.statcounter.com/ Amongst the stats I can follow are downloads. I am utterly baffled and totally mystified. Why – out of hundreds of pictures is the most popular ‘Sign Here’????? Who are you? (I do know approximately where you are) And why ever download a little blue square with Diana of Elephant’s Eye written on it? The next choice, is Sociable Weavers, that I can understand!

Insula, Abusive Pencil (only caps), Isadora and Trajanus all from dafont.com

Do I need to explain how to do this? I see other blogs carry a handwritten signature (Here is a tutorial add-personal-signature-to-your-blog Tx to AZplantlady for the link) (and Barbara in Mannheim links us to making a font of your own hand-writing!), but, as ever, I prefer to do it my way. If you are one of the downloaders, and have tweaked your own signature, do comment and link back to share it with us.

Aubrey, Kells (no caps)and Art Nouveau (only caps) again from dafont.com

It all begins with a picture. YOUR OWN picture, you wouldn’t steal intellectual property would you? Thought not. Choose the picture for your signature just as carefully as you chose your header photo. Something that says ‘My Blog’ to you, and us. Blue skies are one of the things my homesick heart yearned for, when we lived in Switzerland. Just as the Swiss Ungardener now yearns for snow to make it a true Christmas (for him …) But only blue, is not so inspiring as a background. Could be anything. So I chose a picture with a delicate tracery of cloud.

(Sorry, just trying out two of the new ones with Word, there are so many...)

Go to your usual software for adding text. What you use to write a watermark/copyright/This Is Mine. Your camera came with software, which will do this for you. Choose a suitable patch of the photograph. Now you start playing with fonts. Your word-processing software comes with a HUGE number of fonts. Then there are various sources for free fonts. I found 9 fonts I love at http://www.dafont.com/ Very moreish, I do warn you … Adjust the font size to make best use of your patch. Play with the colour so it sings with, or pops against, the colours in the photograph. Go it, just so?

Cut out your patch with the signature, save it, name it, and away you go. And, since you made it yourself, you can always change it, as you tweak the rest of your blog.

and my usual font is Papyrus, handcrafted look but uses lots of space

Christmas greetings and a happy New Year,

 if you celebrate them, and to all of you,

 may 2010 be well and good.

Coming later this week, Christmas flowers from our garden.

Beware humans bearing gifts - opinion - 20 December 2009 - New Scientist

Beware humans bearing gifts - opinion - 20 December 2009 - New Scientist

THERE'S a Latin proverb, per angusta ad augusta, which translates as "through trial to triumph". Literally speaking, "angusta" refers to a narrow passageway. It gives us the English word "anxious", signalling a place that presses against you, where the walls are tight, and you might be too big to get through. Anxiety is the feeling that you might not make it out the other side.

Small wonder then if people feel anxious at Christmas: Yuletide forms a narrow passage between one year and the next, through which all sorts of large and important things (seeing relatives, cooking a feast, buying presents, even going to church) have to pass. When you're crammed inside the Christmas tunnel, hemmed in by a 2-metre-high conifer, the wan light of January can seem a long way off.

What adds to the anxiety is that most of the things we do in this tunnel aren't done much during the rest of the year. After all, how often do you roast a turkey? So we're not that practised at them, and consequently more likely to feel stressed. There's a theory that what the psyche likes least is a change in its routine, and Christmas, for all its familiarity, marks a great annual convulsion. The psyche recoils from such intrusions into its steady state, then throws up its defences.

Robert Rowland Smith is a philosopher. He was a don at All Souls College, University of Oxford

Little black dress at Peace

It is the festive season, what to wear? Amongst all the little black dresses and the flamboyant colours? A heavy silk, shimmering with a subtle sense of its quality, and with an understated slub. And what better to stand out in a sea of little blacks – than a few distinguished white polka dots. Think of Cecil Beaton’s costumes for Ascot in My Fair Lady!

The white-spotted fruit chafer Mausoleopsis amabilis is related to the scarab (ancient Egyptian symbol) and dung beetle (tidying up after the wild animals). Chafer meaning JAWS! They eat flowers and sap – ours seem to enjoy the stamens of the roses (you must admit, they look luscious and juicy, like a melon?), kindly leaving me the petals. The next flush of buds is opening, so there are enough flowers – to pick for my neighbour, friends to tea, my mother and sisters, each room in the house, and there are still flowers to be seen in the garden.

These beetles must have come in with the horse manure we spread around the garden. In this season of Goodwill to all life, they are chomping on our Peace rose. Piet Perd lives across the road. On Saturday, a lucky bride will have wonderful pictures to remember her special day.

From wikipedia Early 1945 Meilland wrote to Field Marshal Alan Brooke the principal author of the master strategy that won the Second World War, to thank him for his key part in the liberation of France and to ask if Brooke would give his name to the rose. Brooke declined saying a much better and more enduring name would be "Peace".

Here is an extract from the wonderful book 'For Love of a Rose' by Antonia Ridge


As war loomed, the trial beds had to be almost emptied of roses. Now, they had to grow vegetables instead. Just before all normal communications in Europe were cut, though, Antoine had managed to send out three small parcels; one to his rose-grower friend in Italy, and another to the one in Germany; the third was sent to his American friend, Robert Pyle, at the American Consulate in Lyons.


The American Rose Society agreed to organise a name giving ceremony on April 29th, 1945. There was no way of knowing if Antoine Meilland and Francis were still alive, or if their rose gardens at Tassin, near Lyons still existed. ‘We dedicate this lovely new rose to: PEACE’ On that day, fixed so long ago in advance, Berlin fell.


'Fate has willed,' Francis wrote, 'that our rose, 3 - 35 - 40, should be known under different names in different countries, but each of these names surely shows that in seeing such a lovely rose, men of good will cry "Gloria Dei", be moved to "Joy" and will most truly desire "Peace".And here in France our rose will bloom to the lovely memory of a beloved wife and mother: Madame A. Meilland.'


The forty nine delegates to the newly formed United Nations first met in San Francisco, as each delegate came into the hotel room reserved for him, he saw ‘This is the rose "Peace" which received its name the day Berlin fell. May it help to move all men of goodwill to strive for peace on Earth for all mankind.’ And on that day, that very day, a truce was declared in devastated Europe. On that day for the first time in six long cruel years, no bombs fell, the guns were silent; and that night no sirens wailed and the children of Europe slept in peace.


Today, the 16th of December, is a fraught and difficult chapter in our history - The Battle of Blood river. A devout, Calvinist people - the Day of the Vow, and the Voortrekker Monument (from Wikipedia - Through an opening in this dome a ray of sunlight shines at twelve o'clock on 16 December annually, falling onto the centre of the Cenotaph, striking the words 'Ons vir Jou, Suid-Afrika' (Afrikaans for 'We for Thee, South Africa'). The ray of light is said to symbolise God's blessing. Its interior maintained visible links with the sun civilization of ancient Africa in Egypt. The most famous African icon of high civilization known in Moerdijk's time was Nefertiti. Moerdijk said the chevron pattern on the floor depicts water, as does the double chevron hieroglyph from the civilization of old Egypt. The opening in the water-floor can be identified with the watery abyss, as in the creation theology of ancient African civilization.) Becoming, in the new South Africa - the Day of Reconciliation. May all our children sleep in peace.

Wreath at the door

As the Advent candles were a custom I learnt while living in Switzerland, so did I bring back the Christmassy idea of hanging an evergreen wreath on the front door to welcome visitors in this festive holiday season. Small problem. We have temperatures in the mid thirties C, and nothing evergreen would last longer than days. I don’t like artificial, I want the real thing.

About the Advent wreath – from the Rev Ken Collins - Martin Luther had a number of ideas for things that people could do at home to teach the catechism to their children. He certainly didn’t invent the wreath itself, because that goes back to ancient Roman times, and probably even earlier. People used wreaths as an Advent decoration long before Luther, but Luther may have used the wreath as a Christian-education device and thus popularized it. I suspect he had a hand in it because the Advent wreath in its present form started in Germany as a Lutheran family custom. Four candles – hope, love, joy and peace.  It is kind of odd to think that a Methodist would put a pink candle in a Lutheran Advent wreath because the pope used to have the custom of giving out roses, but sometimes we’re a little more ecumenical than we realize!

My sister made me a wreath of grape vine prunings. That is real and lasting. An ideal base. Doesn’t have to  be ‘hidden’ and is strong enough to sustain the bits. (When you are next pruning, think ‘wreath’).

In March when we went to Kirstenbosch for the annual sale of indigenous plants, I collected these. Mostly from proteas. During a fire, the flowers close their woody bracts. You can see the heritage of singed black marks from the flames. Then after the fire, when the weather is kind, the flower opens and scatters MASSES of fluffy seeds. Leaving behind these wooden flowers, which are so inviting to create with. As appealing in their different way as pine cones.

Later with some shredded fingers, and crosseyed, with aching legs, because I was engrossed at a funny angle – I have a wreath. We prefer to hang it on a convenient stretch of wall next to the door, instead of the door itself.

Seemed a bit brown and wooden so I added fluffy blonde, wild oats. Our neighbours rip this out – it’s not as if it’s green! It stands in our garden, almost as tall as I am, and even now in mid summer, we still have grateful birds coming. Especially the red bishops.

PS - If you would like to share your own (made it myself) wreath with us - you are welcome to leave a comment and a link!

                              

Citrusdal – Victorian spa

We have lived in Porterville for three years, but only three weeks ago did we discover, to our unexpected surprise, this Victorian gem.

Come with us from Elephant’s Eye. Head north towards Clanwilliam. Cross the Olifantsriverberge over the Piekenierskloof pass to the next town of Citrusdal. Another small farming town, but, instead of wheat fields, here you will be surrounded by orange groves. In season the farm stalls sell pockets of oranges, and naartjies (Christmas stocking mandarins, easy peelers). Then follow the Olifantsriver back towards where you came from. To The Baths.

We were hoping for lunch, and friends have stayed there recently, so...

Thru the wheat fields, which have been harvested and are dry stubble, scattered with small square and huge round bales of straw.  Over the pass, with a spectacular view back over the wide valley separating Porterville and Piketberg. Along the river, past the orange orchards, with fynbos patches between and beyond the farmlands, up the slopes.

Turn off, through ‘a stitch in time’ and find yourself in a Victorian spa. There are the original buildings, the main house and a Victorian hotel, some small cottages. And a modern wing, double storey to match the hotel building. Happy campers too. A modern restaurant with a deck over the river in the shade of many green trees and a lush, going to be almost subtropical, garden. These modern buildings are not mock Victorian kitsch, but they are in peaceful sympathy and gracious harmony with the true Victorians.

And we did enjoy our lunch (vegetarian, and with a choice, so far from anywhere!)

The spa itself has two large swimming pools. The first one, too hot to put your hand in. No swimmers on this sunny November day, but imagine a cold winter day, with snow on the mountains! Then the second pool with perhaps twenty people, this one was just pleasantly luke warm, blood heat.

There are also rooms where you can fill a huge bath and wallow in private, thinking Victorian thoughts.

It was our good fortune that the first and only time we were there, the jacarandas and bougainvilleas were smothered in an unbroken wave of flowers.

Extracts from 'Taking the Waters' by Hazel Hall. The San, or Bushmen were indigenous to the area, and they used this hot spring as a pivotal life source for many years. Evidence of this can be found in the rock art found near The Baths. Because their physical and spiritual worlds were so intertwined, the San would have harnessed supernatural power from the hot water for healing purposes. In 1739 the place was first mentioned in VOC (Dutch East India Company) documents. Many respected Cape families patronized The Baths including botanists Carl Thunberg (the father of South African Botany) and Francis Masson (the English gardener from Kew). The Olifants River Syndicate had big plans to build a railway tunnel through the mountains from Porterville into the valley, but the Anglo Boer War intervened. James McGregor was a remarkable man, but when he rode down over the mountains, a short, stocky Scot in a crumpled hat and veldskoene with his goods piled on a wagon, no one would have believed it. He married the beautiful Lenie van Wyk, whose family had farmed in the district for generations. They made him promise, with his marriage vows, that he would never take her to his foreign land over the sea. It was his two younger sons, William and James, who took over The Baths from their father. But in 1918 tragedy struck with the highly infectious Spanish flu epidemic. They both died within six days of each other and thus The Baths ended up in the hands of their seven sisters, and have stayed in the McGregor family to this day. James McGregor and his descendants have brought The Baths into the twenty-first century without disturbing the timeless peace and beauty of the Cederberg.