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One of my photos

Drought?

May 22nd, 2006 · Posted by Skuds in Life · No Comments · Life

What a miserable weekend it has been.

Much has been said about our current water supply situation, and the word ‘drought’ keeps being used. Looking at the online Chambers dictionary I see that the definition of drought is “a prolonged lack of rainfall” and that does not seem to be very appropriate at the moment.

Its not a drought – its a water shortage, although its plentiful in my back garden: just look at the photo of one of my paving stones. Its there somewhere under all the water. The only drought is here on this blog, where the posts have been drying up a bit lately.

I know a little bit of science. I have heard of aquifers and the like, so I can understand how it can piss down for days on end in a relentless drizzle, broken only by total downpours and yet still the reservoirs can be empty. I also know that it does not help when the water companies lose half of it while it is on the way to us so that we can waste most of what is left.

As anyone can see from the photo above, I can’t really understand all the references in the newspapers to lawns going brown. Mine has had water laying on it for the whole year. After a week or two without rain I was able to get the mower out but still left footprints in the boggier parts.

The amazing thing about this is that our garden is not level. It dips away from the house. Just on the other side of the back fence the land drops away almost vertically towards a stream. I had a walk round there this afternoon and saw the stream was flowing very fast, taking the run-off from all the houses. How my garden can retain so much water, given the local topography is totally beyond me.

What really gets me – apart from the ever-increasing water bills – is the prospect of having water restrictions and the possibility of seeing everyone queuing up for standpipes with a bucket in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Am I going to regret giving up my old house in Southgate which had an artesian well in the back garden?

I am no sun-worshipper, but I do like it when its not pouring with rain all the time. I like to be able to go for walks in the woods without a high probability of sliding down every slope.

Back in the mid-70’s everyone seemed to put up with the water shortages as it seemed like it was the price to pay for a hot summer. Now it looks like we are going to pay the price and get nothing in return.

It is particularly hard on those of us who have an almost pathological dislike of umbrellas.

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