A note on the last post

The photo in the post below was taken at the Sappers Club, near Skeerpoort, South Africa. The place has now been replaced by a rather garish golf estate, but when I was growing up it was our favourite place to go on holiday, a haven of peace and old-world hospitality.
The ecology is riparian forest, heaviest in river-courses and south (poleward)-facing slopes. The most common trees are white stinkwood (Celtis africana), ironwood (Olea capensis cuspidata), and mulberry (Morus mesozygia), with karee trees (Searsia lancea) acting as shelter for their seedlings. It's hard to overstate the value of shady forests in a climate which is otherwise uncomfortably hot. At that latitude, autumn is very short, only 4-6 weeks around Easter. Spring (Sept-Oct) is more noticeable, with the stinkwoods and mulberrys showing the new green of sprouting leaves.

Before the area became such a tourist site, the local architecture, whether for settlers or indigenes, looked a lot like this:

These houses, known as rondavels, are thick-walled and thatched, making them cool in summer and warm in winter.
In the city of Greystone, the older or poorer houses were round and thatched like this, but fancier dwellings had drystone walls, tile roofs, and were elongated ovals like traditional celtic houses. The best ones had extended eaves or porches for shade, or were built with a courtyard behind them for a sheltered garden.

Grander structures would be of dressed local stone, much like this monument to SA Sappers in Skeerpoort, North West Province:

This is the kind of environment that just cries out for epic tales and magical beings. Starting in my mid-teens, I imagined what kinds of elves would live there, how they would look, what they would have to contend with, and how they came to be there.

Welcome to my world: now in paperback!