Phil Togwell and family where out with us last week and he has written a great little report on his visit, check it out here.
We don't actually have a well, we have a cistern that fills up rain water, it's all very clean and filtered and actually very soft water. The problem is it doesn't rain very much here, so last week we ran out of water. This was not a total disaster as you just get a lorry to bring you 10,000 litres up the hill to put in your cistern for about 80 euros.
This has made us all think about our water use, something I would imagine most people in the western world don't have to think about much. We have checked a few things out and found that just running the tap for the dishes waiting for the water to get hot wastes 4 litres, like wise for a shower. So on any given day we waste a minimum of 30 litres!
It's a similar situation with electricity, if you run a washing machine at night you deplete your solar batteries, if you leave an electrical item on standby you deplete the battery, forget to switch a light off and you further deplete the battery. When the battery gets depleted we then kick over to a petrol generator which isn't very eco friendly, this recharges the batteries.
It's almost like we have become reluctant energy and water conservers, we are totally not used to living this way it is good for us but can also be a little stressful. We could end up easily getting through 10'000 litres of water every two or three weeks and the generator costs about 500 euros to put 680 litres of fuel in.
Yet we do live in the western world and this isn't Africa I am catching a very small glimpse of what it must be like to have no water, but I can always just phone for a lorry!
To be honest I am becoming more eco conscious not solely because of the environment but because of the cost!
I am westernised and as far as I am concerned, on a convenience level, simple living sucks!!! but I am stuck with it and having to embrace it, which is good. I'm not a hippy although I would love a kaftan
3 comments:
I would pay money to see Brian in a kaftan.
ok. how much?
Oh man that must be weird. I've been worrying about how much we consume at the moment. Our thermostat has broken so we keep chugging out heat if we forget to turn of the radiators. It makes me feel guilty every time we forget... Are Kafkans those big tops that Mike Pilivachi wears?? xc
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