In the first part of this paper I review the understanding of anomalous properties of water in terms of particles interacting by core-softened potentials. I discuss the origin of the bulk anomalies in terms of the two different configurations of neighbor particles: low energy-high volume and high energy-low volume. In the second part I study some anomalies of water under strong spatial confinement, namely when it lubricates a contact between two solid surfaces. Solvation and friction forces are studied as a function of lubricant thickness. Whereas for hard core particles maxima in the solvation force are correlated with maxima in the friction force, for soft core particles and appropriately chosen parameters the opposite is true. This leads to a reduction of the friction coefficient of about one order of magnitude in the second case. I argue that materials that expand when freeze may be modeled in terms of soft core particles, and that these materials are naturally good boundary lubricants.