What's new

You can now change your own business listing

Until now, once you'd put your business on the site that was that. If you wanted to add a photo or fix a phone number, there was nothing you could do about it. That's the biggest change here.

From start to finish

1. 1

   You fill in the form

   Your business name, what you do, your number, and a few pictures.

2. 2

   We send you an email

   Nothing is on the site yet. The email just makes sure the address really is yours. Have a look in your spam folder if it doesn't arrive in a minute or two.

3. 3

   You tap the button in that email

   That's the moment your listing appears on the site. Nobody has to approve it and there's nothing to wait for.

4. 4

   A second email arrives. Keep this one

   It says your listing is live, and it has your own private button inside it. That button is what lets you change things later.

5. 5

   Change anything, whenever you like

   Next week or next year, open that second email and tap the button. Change your prices, swap your pictures, update your number. It appears on the site straight away. Lost the email? Ask for it again on the get my link page.

This is for business listings. Things you're selling can't be changed yet. For now, take the advert down and put it up again.

Choose the picture that shows first

The first picture on your listing used to be whichever one your phone handed over first, which was hardly ever the one you'd have picked. There's now a separate place for it, above the rest.

A logo works best there. It's shown whole rather than trimmed to fit, so your business name stays readable. Your other pictures sit behind it and people can swipe through them.

Facebook and Instagram on your listing

Add either one using your private button, and the little icons appear on your listing. Paste whatever's easiest: the whole web address, whatever the app gives you when you tap share, or just your name on there.

Selling something? Your advert keeps itself alive

Adverts run for a week and then come down, which stops the page filling up with things that sold months ago. But if yours hasn't sold, you shouldn't have to type it all out again.

How it works

There's more on this, and everything else, on the help page.

Pictures are easier to handle

Choosing pictures is simpler now. You pick them from your phone, see them straight away as small squares, and tap the × on any you've changed your mind about. A business listing takes up to ten, an advert or a lost pet up to five.

Guides to what lives around us

Someone asked whether we could name the birds so they could teach their children. That turned into three guides:

• Garden birds: what's about, when, and what each one sounds like.
• Owls and birds of prey.
• Snakes: how to tell them apart, what to do, and who to call.

Seen something yourself? Add it to the list. You can send up to five pictures now, which helps when nobody can agree what it was.

Public holidays, and where they come from

A new page listing every South African public holiday, when each one falls this year, and a short piece on what the day is actually for. It's meant for two moments: working out whether that Monday is really a day off, and having something to tell the children when they ask why nobody's at school.

It always shows the next one coming up at the top, already open. It also handles the rule that catches everyone out: when a holiday falls on a Sunday the Monday is a day off too, but when it falls on a Saturday it isn't. The page says which is which so you don't have to work it out.

To put them in your own calendar, tap the green button near the top of the page and choose the year. Your phone will ask whether to add them, and that's it: all of them at once, the Monday days off included. There's a file for this year and one for next.

Three of the holidays point somewhere you can actually go, with a map and directions: the King Shaka Memorial up at KwaDukuza for Heritage Day, and both museums at Blood River near Dundee for the Day of Reconciliation.

See the holidays page

A history of the suburb

Ever wondered why the plots here are long and narrow, or why Pigeon Valley sits where it does? Manor Gardens was laid out in the early 1920s on part of the old Cato Manor farm and sold as a health area: somewhere breezy to escape the heat of town.

A detailed history of the suburb was published in 2014 by Graham Leslie McCallum, then a Manor Gardens resident, built around the memoir of Phyllis Reim, who moved to Manor Drive in 1924 and stayed for the rest of her life. It has the original estate map and an aerial photograph from 1936. We have added it to the about page as a historical reference. It is his own work and his own account, not ours, and worth an hour of anyone's time.

Easier to get around

A few things were buried, so they've been brought out. The menu at the top now has Wildlife, Public holidays, Help and this page under Local, and the longer pages have a row of buttons at the bottom so you can move on without scrolling back up.

The panel at the top of the home page also shows the most recent wildlife sighting now, and it shows a notice there if a neighbour's pet has gone missing.

One thing has gone: the little radio player. It was taking up a slot that's more useful for things that change. Say the word if you miss it and it can come back somewhere else.

New kinds of business you can list under

Added because someone had nowhere sensible to put themselves: Auto & Motoring, Suppliers & Wholesale, Building Materials and Florists. If your trade still doesn't fit anywhere, say so and we'll add it. It takes a minute.

One housekeeping note

There's now a short page of rules for what you can put on the site. Almost everything is welcome. The main thing we can't publish is a claim that a product treats or cures something, because that sort of claim is controlled by law in South Africa and this site is run by a neighbour rather than a company. Saying what something is is always fine.