Water Saver

I MADE EFFORTS this year to cut down on our use of water by attaching a butt on the main fall pipe from the roof and putting a couple of cut-down plastic water bottles in the cistern of the toilet, which save us about 2 litres per flush. It seems to have worked.

Our previous average consumption for July to September was 35.5 cubic metres. In 2006, with butts connected to the roof of the studio extension, the greenhouse and the shed, we got that down to 32 cubic metres but now we've brought it down to 25, 30% down on the previous average.

This summer we hardly ever used the outdoor tap. I remember topping up the pond on one occasion by using the hosepipe but the last time I did this, after quite a long dry spell, I was able to use the butts, running around with buckets from one to the other in a kind of one-man relay race.

Of course one factor in reduced consumption might have been that we did have the wettest summer on record!

'We're not short of water!' my brother Bill insists, and he's got a point after the summer floods, 'if they're short of water in the south, they should stop building so many houses!'

But I still feel that it's my bit towards saving the planet, besides, during the same period the price per cubic metre has gone up from 86 pence to £1.09p so, when the other charges are added, we're saving more than £20 on our previous bill.