The day the plumber came to fix the toilet I also asked him to take a look at an overflowing drain; everytime we emptied the bath, water flowed all over the garden. He unclogged it by breaking my broom handle, but never mind. At least I no longer feel guilty about my thriving buddlaea bush, seemingly unaffected by hosepipe bans. I would have asked him to check the other drain, except for the fact that, thanks to youthful high jinks when my teenagers were enjoying an al fresco soiree the evening before, I assume, I noticed a partially inflated condom clinging to the concrete. Being an old-fashioned sort of a girl, still able to blush if caught off guard, I positioned myself in front of the offending article and decided to get him to look at that drain next time.
Being an island nation, I'm still not quite sure why we have such problems around water. If sewage plants deal with all manner of unpleasant chemicals, what is the problem with removing the salt from sea water and making more use of that? I am told that the planet, like the human, comprises 60% water so, presumably, that is more or less constant. How is it possible to run out?
Could it be, in the love of drama in general, we like having water shortages? Maybe, we should take more time to visualise clear, clean water in abundance and bring that into our reality.
Maybe, for next summer, I should get one of these:
It's a desalination machine. I live a short walk from the sea-front; we could form a fire-fighting style chain of buckets, maybe....How did Ben Fogle fit his onto a boat, I wonder?
That sounds good. So much water is wasted in leaks that in reality I suspect we do have plenty of water. I think desalination plants use a lot of energy to release the fresh water and are mainly used where energy is cheap and water really scarce. You made me smile about the plumber. Usually they come, scratch their heads and make comments about whoever botched this up and do very little.