Water, Water, Everywhere

The Weaver of Grass has had more than one watery post lately, and today she has prodded me to jump in and splash around with her, as I follow her train of thought. I've had a life long fascination with stuff, from the days when I dabbled in my Gran's water butt and scrubbed her garden path enthusiastically with the soft rainwater, to now, when I prefer water as a drink over tea and coffee.

An architect friend once told me that Havant is built over many underground streams and watercourses which eventually make their way to the nearby sea. In the oldest part of the town, just to the rear of St Faiths church, the ancient Homewell spring comes bubbling up from the ground, and must have been one of the major factors in the settlement of the area.
When the children were small we always had to visit Homewell whenever we parked in the nearby car park, even if it was only a fleeting visit on the way to the shops. But best of all, was when we were merely ambling round and about and could give the spot our full attention for some time.

The spring fills an area of no more than three or four square metres, if that, with a low, curved wall forming a shape almost like a quadrant of a circle, with two brick walls which join at ninety degrees at the left and top of this near quadrant. They have small, semi circular grills for the water to flow through, after it has bubbled mysteriously up through the little stones on the bed of the pool.

Tiny water creatures are sometimes discernible in the clear water, but the bubbles are the real source of wonder. If you perch on the wall and wait, you can see strings of them chasing each other leisurely to the surface, never twice in the same place, never with bubbles of the same size; little vertical bursts of spherical oxygen bubbles with inexplicable origins.

To this day it remains a source of wonder to me, that my son never ended up falling head first into the water as he dangled over the wall to feel the bubbles, or to reach for a stone to plop back into the pond. Despite many pleas on his behalf, he was never allowed to paddle, because there was no way of knowing how many broken pieces of glass hid amongst the seemingly innocuous stones. Strangely enough, I don't remember his sister being so vociferous with paddling requests, but I freely admit to my own almost overwhelming urge to do so!

Plus, I confess, on one sultry summer evening whilst on my own, waiting for a lift home, I did surreptitiously straddle the wall, and let one rather hot and dusty foot escape its flip-flop and sample the delights of cool, fresh water. Who says I couldn't still be a big kid in my thirties?