After the exceptionally hot summer and then the welcome return of some rain to restore our lawns and gardens, one might have thought that our weather troubles were over. But there is a disturbing report this morning to the effect that we need a lot more rain to restore water levels to normality. Above-average rainfall is needed across England for the next seven months for all areas to recover from drought by spring 2027, according to new research. The Environment Agency (EA) stated that despite some wet weather during the first half of September, almost three-quarters of England remains in drought following an exceptionally dry spring and summer as well as a succession of heatwaves. It says around 120% of typical rainfall is needed between now and April for all areas to be considered out of drought. So perhaps the message needs to be put out that we need to be careful about the way in which we use water. I know that in parts of Australia where rainwater can be at a premium, houses are designed so that water can be used several times e.g. already used water can be stored and used to flush toilets. The older generation in our society used to understand this as I can remember my mother talking about ‘good’ water which was hot water that had been used for one purpose but could be saved and used for another. Now whether my mother was correct in her usage of this term is subject to some doubt. Historically, many communities also believed that drinking good water from pristine local springs directly contributed to good health, vitality, and even upright character, contrasting with ‘bad water’ that was thought to cause illness or sluggishness. On this subject, I remember an occasion when, as a teenager, I was going camping with my best friend when I lived in Leeds. We were walking through the little village of Lofthouse near Harrogate. One of the things that lodges in my memory is the inscription which we found as a stone inscription on the Lofthouse Parish Water Trough and Fountain, a public monument and war memorial located in North Yorkshire, The inscription read ‘If you want to be healthy, wealthy and stout, use plenty of cold water inside and out’ and is a traditional temperance rhyme and a humorous variation of Benjamin Franklin\u2019s famous ‘healthy, wealthy, and wise’ proverb. In these more health conscious days, you could rephrase this to read ‘healthy, wealthy and thin’ and make it rhyme by using the phrase ‘without and within’ It is strange the things that remain lodged in one’s memory but for some reason, I have never forgotten this one. Even when camping, one was taught to walk for a fair distance up stream from one’s water supply which was typically a nearby stream to ensure that the water supply was not contaminated upstream by a dead animal in the water. There are still some isolated dwellings in our country and, as we would imagine in Wales and Scotland that rely upon what are termed ‘private’ water supplies and these may number as many as 1.0-1.5% of all properties. As a mental thought experiment, I have wondered myself what would be the consequences if the Welsh had managed to keep control of their own water supplies and not have them plundered in the past to serve communities like Birmingham. Some research as uncovered the fact that Water travels roughly 73 miles (117 km) from Wales to the Frankley Reservoir in Birmingham through the Victorian Elan Valley Aqueduct. Now if the Welsh had managed to keep control and to charge for this and other water supplies, then the Welsh economy would have been a lot more buoyant than it is at the moment. And to extend this argument even further, water is a growing source of global conflict, acting as a trigger, weapon, and casualty in disputes worldwide. According to the Pacific Institute, water-related conflicts reached a record 420 incidents globally, driven heavily by increasing climate pressures, population growth, and war. Just to round off these ruminations on water supplies, on the occasion of our 40th wedding anniversary, Meg and I indicated our wish for no presents but we did invite people to make a donation which eventually was destined for a water project in Sudan, administered through CAFOD (Catholic Fund for Overseas Development) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After attending my Tai Chi class, I spent some time on the ‘Chatty Table’ where the conversation ranged over a huge variety of subjects and we marvelled again at the 90+year old lady who has just relocated from Spain and she reminded us that she used to swim in the open sea every morning from one end of the bay to the other at which news we could not fail but to be impressed. Afterwards, I went to a local homewares based store, hoping to find some Kilner stores in which to store my soup making at the weekend. I was not surprised to find that none of these were in stock but I did purchase a couple of straight sided glass containers with bamboo tops each of which would hold a couple of pints (well over a litre), When I am next on the high street, I will also see what pickings are available in the charity shops but I think I probably have enough glass storage jars in stock for the immediate future. I had an unfortunate clash of coomitments in the afternoon as a doctor’s monitoring appointment where I need to give blood samples clashed with my Conversational Spanish class. At the doctor, my blood pressure was taken, I was relieved to see that it was practically the same as when it was taken in June. As one’s arteries become less elastic with age and hence blood pressure rises, I wondered if the generally accepted ranges were recalibrated to take account of age. The web revealed the information that as a general goal, many doctors accept a systolic target of 130\u2013150 mm Hg for adults aged 80 and older to balance heart protection with safety from dizzy spells. Active and very healthy older adults may have stricter goals and safely aim for under 130\/80 mm Hg if they tolerate it well and I was pleased to be only a smidgeon outside these stricter limits. But in a couple of weeks, I shall have the full array of my blood results and this may, or may not, reveal the need for further medication. Even though I do not feel particularly inclined, I think I shall probably make a visit to the park and do a couple of circuits of the artificial lake which is a distance of about 1.67 kilometres or just over a mile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After the exceptionally hot summer and then the welcome return of some rain to restore our lawns and gardens, one might have thought that our weather troubles were over. But there is a disturbing report this morning to the effect that we need a lot more rain to restore water levels to normality. Above-average rainfall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8577"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8579,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577\/revisions\/8579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}