Water, water everywhere

It's raining again...

It's not often I get rained off a job but last week I was out doing a client's garden and the thunder and lightening started. It started raining slowly - a few fat drops at first, then more, and more, and more...

After about 10 minutes I was about as soaked as it's possible to be, squelching around in my gardening boots with the path turning rapidly into a river. I have one of those great gardening hats with the wide brims that keeps everything out, but even so it was streaming with water to such an extent it was like standing behind Victoria Falls.

Since every time I stuck my fork in a bit of earth it turned into a muddy stream and ran away, I figured it was time to stop and knocked off half an hour early - first time I've ever been forced to do that as I'm a hardy type usually!

Since then it's been raining more or less non-stop, including another thunderstorm and downpour, and everywhere is soaked right to the bedrock.

Then I read that the water companies are saying there's still going to be a hosepipe ban next year. What does it take? This has been the warmest October on record, but also one of the wettest - yet they don't seem to have the nous to collect the damn water and put it somewhere until we need it. Instead it's "oh look, it's July and it's not raining, so there's no water available - sorry....".

Something tells me they're giving whatever water there is to the higher-paying commercial users - who incidentally seem able to use gallons and gallons to cool machines, jet-wash buildings and the like - while us poor householders get pinched. And could the fact that they're making more money out of the commercial users have something to do with the fact that they have to pay dividends to shareholders? I wonder...