After a whole day with sun and blue sky on Saturday , though can’t really say that the temperature was hot it was pleasantly warm, Sunday brought the return of rain and heavy low cloud so temperature dropped and view of sky or even the bottom of the garden was gone.
Today the low cloud has thickened and the rain has been insistent. The garden has appeared and disappeared through the gloom and the valley itself has not made an appearance but inside the cottage is snug and dry so I feel fortunate indeed.
Dreams of further work that needs to be done on the cottage fabric are tempered by the need to save for quite a few months, at least, to pay for the work plus consider the logistics of emptying sitting room and kitchen to enable the work to go ahead. Then more immediately is the ongoing clean up after the last phase of building work.
The other activity of clear out, bagging binning and giving to charity shop of ‘stuff’ also continues. I am achieving a little each day and the sense that this is good keeps me plodding on.
One of the things I have in my home that I am daily thankful for and definitely not getting rid of are taps. I cannot turn the tap on without being always grateful and fascinated by the clean clear flow of water that arrives in such volume and with such ease. I also have the added delight of instant hot water which is truly a gift when disinfectant and soap are such big parts of my life.
There have been times when for one reason or another, the water supply to the tap has been interrupted but almost immediately the water utility company arrives at my door with numerous containers of clean water.
When the water has become a little cloudy due to some over exuberant oxygenation at the pumping station boiling the water just in case of infection risk is all that’s required, which doesn’t involve me in many miles walked to collect both cloudy water and firewood to make a fire to boil the water.
This is another reason why I am considering how many of anything I need; books, plates, gadgets, fabric, yarn, fibre, art materials, garden tools, clothes and all else I find in my care.
I look beyond my doorstep, beyond the country I live in and know that there are billions of people who still don’t have access to a well delivering fresh clean water let alone that water coming from a tap directly in to a basin in their own homes.
You can live without many things but you cannot live without access to safe clean water.
I cannot physically deliver a tap attached to a pipe bringing safe clean water to every home in the world but there is that possibility if the political will were more about water than oil.
Maybe if more people just stopped and looked around at their great good fortune at having such easy access to water, that we often so easily take for granted, and wonder what life would really be like without that easy access we might push our politicians for the right of safe clean water to be accessible to all becoming a reality rather than some pipe dream of idealists.
I have been informed by some people that dreams of this nature are for the naïve, the youthful zealot and that as one grows older you can leave such intensity and passions behind and enjoy the finer things in life without troubling too much about people thousands of miles away or for that matter nearer.
But every time I fill a glass with safe clean water, stand under my shower feel hot water on my skin I cannot help but smile and give thanks. In fact I have recently realised that each time I step in to the shower I actually say thank you out loud. This is partly to do with the fact that hot water on rebelling skeleton is always a relief but it is more about acknowledging how rich I am and taking a moment to remember there are a billion reasons to want others to be able to share in this.
I am not naïve or a youthful zealot but someone who has grown older who doesn’t feel I am able to leave the dreams I had in my teens and twenties behind. The life I live today may be much different from the one I led forty years ago but the sense of connection to other lives on the other side of the world still encourages me to seek ways to make that connection as fluid as I would wish:0)
I support WaterAid and as I approach 60 I still dream of safe clean water for all and give thanks each day for the taps in my home that bring me this so easily.
If you missed this campaign last year maybe the film will give you a reason to explore WaterAid further.