No rain to wet the soil and make things grow and plenty of sunshine too since the end of March. If this carries on much longer, I am going to need to purchase a camel to get to the supermarket. I will call him Humpy Dumpy and he can live in our back garden. I hope he won't spit at me. Apparently, many camels have adopted that foul habit.
In an average year, Sheffield gets 32.17 inches of rain. This year, the rain clouds have got a lot of extra work to do if they are going to catch up. Already, levels are sinking in our local reservoirs - at Redmires and in the Derwent Valley.
Regarding water use, I was thinking the other day about how often people washed their bodies when I was a child. Mostly, I had one bath a week. Like most other Yorkshire families - we didn't even have a shower.
In contrast, nowadays most people have showers or baths every day of the week - even when their bodies are not dirty. That's a hell of a lot of extra water being used day after day - whereas back in the fifties and sixties, each Briton's weekly water usage score was pretty low. No wonder today's reservoir levels are sinking fast.
Come ye rains from the sky!
Let the clouds begin to cry!
Please rain afore it is too late
Water, Lord! Our need is great!
Bumba-bumba-bumba
Plother-plother-plother!
Eeek!
(All jump high at the end)
Camel photo © AzizAlbagshi
Oh, I remember when one bath per week was standard (on Saturday night). We didn't have a shower either. Or a bathtub or running water, for that matter. We had a galvanized tin tub hauled out to the middle of the kitchen floor and filled by degrees (more added for each bather) by water heated on the stove by my mother. We bathed from cleanest to dirtiest, which meant me first, then my brother, then my mother, and finally my father. This sounds like Victorian times but it was actually the early 1960s in rural Canada.
ReplyDeleteDid you only have one sibling Debra? If so it was a blessing when it came to bathtime. Imagine a family with several children - maybe five or six - all needing a bath.
DeleteI have a younger sister but by the time she came along needing a bath, we had running water and a real bathtub, lol. My parents both came from large families of 7 or 8 kids though.
DeleteWe had the same tub by the fire (3 kids) right up until dad closed off a section of the back porch and built us a bathroom.
DeleteYou girls had it hard back then but of course, at the time, you didn't know better.
DeleteOur yearly precipitation is about 12 in So you will live much longer. The subsoil has a lot to do with how much precipitation we need in a year.
ReplyDeleteEsk was a long way from the ocean. Did you get enough rain there?
DeleteWhen I was a kid, my brother and I always shared the bath water. I always volunteered to go first but I still thinks it's gross. I have a very quick shower daily. My husband likes to just stand in the shower. Wash and get out!
ReplyDeleteWhat? You don't shower together?
DeleteRain, rain, go away. Come again some other day. I don't know where that comes from but I agree with it, even if I do live in bone-dry Arizona.
ReplyDeleteRain, rain come again
DeleteDon't listen to Bruce
Cos he's a pain.
Just tell yourself you are living in Australia and then the dry is normal. I don't shower every day, it's a waste of water, instead I put a smaller amount of water in the basin and wash all over with that. Only use the shower when I need to wash my hair. Many people (not me) also run their washing machines daily, another waste of water.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about washing machines. In the past, people wore their clothes for several days or even longer. Now some folks are obsessed with keeping their clothes clean - not caring about their water use.
DeleteTwo weeks in the UK, and I have not needed the rain hat a packed. I have needed sunscreen that I didn't pack.
ReplyDeleteWeather-wise, you picked a good time to be in Great Britain David.
DeleteThe boss of Southern Water has stated we all use too much water!
ReplyDeleteDid he give that interview in his swimming pool?
DeleteThe last four years winters have been the wettest on record. This spring is the driest. Then people deny climate change. I water my plants and vegetables every two days at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI remember back in the early 60s having to share the bath with my sister and little brother on a Sunday evening. Three of us in just a few inches of tepid water with a squirt of Matey bubbles.
ReplyDeleteThe weather is topsy turvey - we have had more rain, cloudy days and less sun than we can remember.
ReplyDeleteHowever you know what they say - be careful what you wish for!
Save water by drinking coffee
ReplyDeleteProbably no more than one bath a week back in my childhood either. By the time I was in my teens we also had a separate shower, but I can't recall if I used it daily. All my adult life I've preferred fairly short showers to soaking in a bath tub. Where I live now I have no tub, and never missed it. - We've had an unusually dry spring here as well, I think; but with a shower (or even a rainy day) now and then in between.
ReplyDeleteWe, after having a lovely warm Spring, have settled back into almost a week of rain by now, with several more days to come!
ReplyDeleteThis could be written for Melbourne Australia. Average rain for April, around 60mm. None. Average rain for May, 60mm, so far none and none on the horizon. We'll all be rooned.
ReplyDeleteWe were promised/warned of many storms this weekend. So far- nope. We've gotten a little rain but I'd love to see a lot more.
ReplyDeleteI'm a once-a-day showerer but my husband likes to shower more than that if he's been working outside. I didn't realize I was marrying such a hygienic guy but it's sort of nice. I hope you get rain soon.
Hope you get the rain you need soon, Neil.
ReplyDeleteWe're in the same boat (ha!) down here in London. It's dry as a bone. I think we're going to put on the lawn sprinkler to give everything a drink this evening. The water companies are already talking about a possible hosepipe ban later in the year.
ReplyDeleteI don't know where this mania for bathing comes from. How did we all decide we needed a daily bath? I bathe every other day, more or less, and I'm not too stinky.
We're due some thunderstorms here in Wales tomorrow afternoon, so I assume some rain will join them. Back to the warm weather for the rest of the week though.
ReplyDeleteI can see Meadowhall from my garden, it looks like a mirage!
ReplyDelete