Wednesday, August 31, 2011

That sinking feeling


Ever had that sinking feeling that you’ve done something stupid … again?  There’s nothing worse than failing to learn from your mistakes.  

When we first arrived at Lord Howe, we ran out of water at home.  It was the beginning of summer and it could have been very nasty.  We were lucky that my dad took pity on us and gave us some of his water.  He said that for someone of average intelligence, I was pretty stupid.  I was crushed.    

There’s plenty of rain at Lord Howe in winter.  You can afford to do lots of washing and stand in the shower thinking about what to cook for dinner tonight and how to get more sleep.  But when I was getting ready to go to Sydney a couple of weeks ago, I had that sinking feeling.  There was no water pressure in the shower.  I couldn’t have run out of water again … could I?

It turns out that you need to clean the filters on the rain water tanks.  Otherwise, they get blocked with dust and silt and gunk and all of that lovely winter rain just runs down the hill.  Hmmmm.