ABSTRACT
The rain fell from the sky in torrents, washing down the Rock, turning the steep streets into rivers and sending jets of water spurting up from the drains—the heavens had opened over Gibraltar. On Main Street, heavy drops clattered on the cobblestones. This chapter aims to find out how water is perceived and valued in places where it cannot be taken for granted, how people think about water when it does not flow freely from a tap and hardly ever falls from the sky. Dutch summers were synonymous with water, with going to the beach to build sand castles that were then slowly eaten by the tide, with learning to sail and capsizing dinghies on the lakes near Amsterdam, and with watching other summers being washed away by endless rain. Water’s presence is deeply embedded in Dutch culture, the element that has been most decisive in shaping the land, its history and its identity.
