Pooh Sticks and Monet

Bridge over Untroubled Water...

Walking through the park today, as I approached the little bridge over Dollis Brook, my knees instictively bent, and I found myself grabbing up a few twigs to toss over the side.  Pooh Sticks.  I couldn't stop myself!

Toss the twig on the right....

...run to the left to see who wins!

Do the rest of you remember playing this game? It involves throwing sticks from one side of a bridge over a stream, and then running to the other side to see whose stick is the first to be carried by the current to the other side.

The Dollis Brook is very slow moving, so even though this bridge is not very wide at all, I still had a few moments to wait, trying to guess which of my twigs would be the winner.  Well... i was playing by myself, so i did need to have more than one twig to add an element of suspense and possibility to the game!  ... though it was nice to find myself constantly winning the game (though i guess the corrollary to that is that I was also losing every game) 

I did check the web when I got home, to discover that not only does Poohsticks have its own wikipedia entry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poohsticks], but that there is indeed a "World Pooh Sticks Championship! http://www.pooh-sticks.com/  Apparently, one of them is held on the River Thames!

Dollis Brook

The game of Poohsticks, directing my attention to the water, got me noticing how amazing the stream looked!  The leaves are also finding their way into the Dollis Brook.  The Brook is a shallow little thing... really, just deep enough for Kiwi to be able run into and lay down in.  But now that the leaves are starting to come down, as you keep walking the trail, you can catch many more glimpses of brook (often obscured by the thick foliage around it).  

Because it is so shallow and slow moving, it was also looking amazingly reflective today, mirroring back the trees and clouds, the movement of leaves on the surface just enough to give the reflections a slight watery tremor.  I couldn't help but think of wandering past the Monet canvases in the Barnes Exhibition. Sweet....

Leaves and sky in the brook

 ...and yet more leaves...