When I was three

When I was three I was fascinated by water.  Mum who worked at the doctor's as a housekeeper rarely let me in to the kitchen.  I loved the kitchen and above all I loved the kitchen sink.  I was too little to reach the tap but I always made a valiant effort to drag a kitchen chair over and then clamber up.  Mum was always one step ahead of me and so when I had managed to reach the sink she turned off the tap.  It would have been my idea of heaven to get to play with the water.  I always seemed to have a cup or saucepan to catch it but never the water to fill said article. 

Since I was almost always barred from the kitchen I made use of the taps outside to fulfill my needs.  I used to drink out of the garden taps and Mum always told me not to.  Of course I never listened to her but one day I turned on the tap and spider washed out.  Mum of course was there to say, "I told you."  However, the best bit of the taps was that I could get my beloved water, unless of course my unfeeling Mother hadn't turned all the taps off so hard I couldn't turn them on again.  Aunty Mary, the doctor's sister, used to lovingly water her seedlings with the hose and unlike Mum she didn't tighten the tap.  I had a lovely time watering them and washing them out of the ground. 

Sometimes if I was really good Mum would give me an enamel bowl filled with water so I could use it to make mud pies or to make tea in my tea set and then wash all the little cups and saucers and the tea pot and milk jug.  To think that a little bowl of water and a metal tea set could amuse me for hours at a time.  I didn't have to be entertained, I had my imagination and a few bits and pieces and would stay outside until Mum called me in for tea.

I was also fascinated with the little pond covered in chicken wire.  It had beautiful big gold fish in it and I loved to watch them swimming through the green grasses and around and under the rocks.  I don't really know if the wire was there to protect me from falling into the pond or me from interfering with the fish.  I imagine that if the chicken wire had not been there I would have wanted to 'help' the fish swim into my little bowl of water.

In the hot weather I was allowed to play under the sprinkler.  I used to stay under the water so long that my lips turned blue and my fingers wrinkled.  Playing under the sprinkler is a favourite memory.  Even though I am a bit long in the tooth I still remember the absolute joy that water gave me on those long hot days of South Australian summer.