I awoke to no water supply this morning.
The kettle was full from last night. There was a litre of water in a bottle in the fridge. I leave the bath water from my bath lols in place, to use for flushing the loo. No great problem.
A couple of hours later, the water was still off. The kettle was empty and the litre of water had been used.
I went on the web and investigated my water suppliers website. A massive mains supply had burst and cut off supply to mine and a couple of surrounding villages. The water company was on the case.
No problem. I whizzed round to my local coop and bought a 2 litre bottle of water. Hehe. I suddenly discovered that 2 litres of water does not go a long way.
Still no problem. I drove around to a neighbourhood village to pick up some fresh veggies from a smallholding that grows them from seed (yummy), and topped up water at the same time. "Should have paid the bill" quipped the owner.
The website kept us updated with progress details and the water supply restarted about when they said it would, over 12 hours after I had awoken to no water coming from the taps.
So, no biggy bit it made me think a bit. This is the first day in my 60 year existence that I have unexpectedly awoken to no water supply. On every previous occasion, water supply disruptions were publicised well in advance and we were able to draw down sufficient supplies to comfortably see out the disruption. It was a shock.
But what if I did not have this regular, easy and on-tap supply of such a simple but vital commodity? Suppose I had to make the trip I made today to refresh supplies every day? On foot? Aged 60?
Another thing I noticed was the number of times I went unthinkingly to the tap to rinse out something or other.
It is good to be reminded from time to time that the basic services we all take for granted are a relatively recent feature of human life. I am not entirely sure that this forum would exist if I had to spend 4 hours a day dragging home sufficient water to allow basic survival.
