The Spoot

October sky

 Last night, it rained then the rain turned to hail as the wind blew in from the North bringing the chill of the Arctic to the village. Too late to get the vulnerable plants into the greenhouse, the grapefruit and pomegranate plants grown for fun from pips, are unlikely to survive.

Rain is so much part of life in our climate that we forget what a precious occurrence it is for much of the world.  Recently, Cape Town had to introduce rationing of water as the reservoirs levels became lower and lower, much of Australia is in a state of near drought as is most of the Middle East.  The demand for water rises each year but there is too much in the wet areas causing flooding and not nearly enough in the dry areas causing drought.  Climate change is exacerbating the problem

Clean potable water is a boon. It always has been since Man started to spread out across the globe.  Maybe it was drought that drove us out of Africa.

Shellfish a-plenty in the rock pools

 On the hill coming up from our beach is a spring known locally as the Spoot.  It has never been known to dry up. In simpler times, folk would fill their kettles there to make tea in the little beach huts that line the shore. Now we have mains water and the Spoot has been demoted to washing sandy feet and watering thirsty dogs.

The Spoot

 Mesolithic sites, dating from some ten thousand years ago, have been discovered up and down the coast from here.  Those early hunters tended to keep to the coastline, the interior being dense wildwood or marsh.  Living at the beach made sense as there was a ready source of food. The  midden remains on these sites contain shellfish and hazel nuts as well as animal bones and I'm sure our beach was an ideal site.

Hazelnut filberts

There are still whelks, limpets and winkles a-plenty and hazel trees still grow in the deans ...and the Spoot still runs with clear sweet water just as it must have done all those millennia ago.

Climates have changed often since those times but the day the Spoot ceases to flow we will really be in trouble and it may be too late.