But me no Butts

One of the events I missed out on commenting upon earlier on this week was the introduction of a hosepipe and sprinkler ban in the Thames Water area.

Anyone with a garden would have to agree that this has been a drier than average winter. The real question is will a hosepipe ban have any significant effect on water levels in the reservoirs?

The company has been criticised by Ofwat for losing 3.6 billion litres of water per day in leakages and is in danger of being accused of throwing stones in a glasshouse.

However, I can’t help feeling that the ban is actually designed as a consciousness-raising exercise. If that is the reason I guess I actually support the ban.

We do take water for granted. Just think of the inconvenience when we go abroad and have to brush our teeth with bottled stuff. Imagine what it would be like to have to walk a couple of miles just to get enough to cook dinner with. We are relatively lucky in our corner of Europe.

Mind you, we will still be using our hose. We connect ours up to the outside tap and use it to fill up our water butt in the middle of the garden. Then we water using watering cans, but without all the walking back and forth to the tap. We may not be following the letter of the ban, but we are certainly honouring its spirit.