A burst water main managed to bring an entire city to a standstill on Thursday with flooding causing problems on main access roads and water supplies to many households interrupted. From mid-morning until early evening many of us were left with no water supply at all.
The old fella in true gardener style keeps a series of rain-water butts strategically placed around the garden and generously offered us a cold water bath, however, I think it’s safe to say that my germ-conscious mother was less than unimpressed and frankly if he’d continued to press the point he may well have been facing a cold water shower of his own.
The local water company was bombarded with complaints both via the telephone and social media ranging from not being able to make a cup of tea to having a bath. Whilst their engineers battled in severe wind and rain to fix the problem they also arranged deliveries of water to those most vulnerable in the area.
Normal service returned to our water supply by early evening but I thought that all the negative and self-absorbed comments a tad ridiculous especially when there are millions of children throughout the world who don’t have access to clean water day in and day out. For us it was a minor inconvenience for them, life & death. I would like to hope that this has served as a timely reminder especially at this time of year of how blessed most of us are to have easy access to clean water, healthcare, a roof over our heads and food on our tables.
First world problems eh?
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It makes us all the more appreciative to go without our basic utilities for a few hours in Turkey it was a daily occurence
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How true. Here in CA, we have been faced with many wells which have run dry permanently. High schools and other public facilities have opened up their showers so that families can come in and take showers. Bottled water is the norm. It’s a sad state of affairs, and unless we get a lot of rain for the next few years, it looks permanent.
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Here in Devon and other parts of the country too much rain is becoming a problem but makes us empathise with others who are fighting their own battles with mother nature. When I lived in Turkey bottled water was also the norm along with regular power cuts and I remember having some neighbours in to use our bathroom when their water in the next village had been disconnected for a fair old time
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Wow, we have not come to that yet, but you never know. I’ve read that we have been living in a geologically wet couple of centuries in this area, and, if that is true… yikes! 🙂 I love the name of your blog. Is Devon Tinky Town?
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I moved to Altinkum in Turkey for a year or so and it’s called Tinky Town by the expats
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Cute name. Do you have posts telling about it? I’ll have to explore your site more. 🙂
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How very kind of you! In my welcome aboard tab (http://wp.me/P2oQOT-2it)tells you why I moved there (basically I was very publically dumped) so hence the Honeymoon Stories (http://wp.me/P2oQOT-qA) & Tinky Town Tales (http://wp.me/P2oQOT-NC); bet you’re sorry you asked now!
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Not at all!
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Where we are we constantly have power outages and it causes the pumps in the local cistern to cease also. We have solved our problem by installing a large reserve water tank and buying a small generator to run it when we need it intermittently. Our neighbours however; with their limited funds have no such options and so go without water and electricity for up to 12 hours at a time. On the other side of town there is a problem with black water running into houses, something that with our newer piping we have never had a problem with.
It irritates me to see the comments on social media from people who run their air conditioning 24/7 (contributing to the electricity problem) as they moan and whine. I know full well that they have energy efficient refrigerators, access to generators and reserve tanks to get them through. Yes, it’s definitely a first world problem.
Seeing all the storms on your side of the world, hope you and yours are safe and dry. 🙂
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We’re all good here in Devon but can’t say the same for lots of people in Cumbria. I am always bewildered that people enjoy moaning about mundane things when others are struggling to get through their day whether that’s from illness, homelessness, poverty, hunger. We really don’t know how good some of us have it
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Amazing how easily some are inconvenienced. I suspect things are apt to degenerate in the coming years of decades. Whatever will all these complainers do?
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People will always find something to moan about, Gunta. I think if we were all to witness real poverty we might just change our minds
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yes Dallas, I hope it will have shaken up a few people! We read in our papers here every day, especially during the very very hot season, how people in the villages suffer because of non-availability of water out of their communal standpipes in the road. It is heartbreaking to see the queues of old women, children (who should be in nursery school) etc. waiting with their vessels for the water truck to arrive – maybe! if they are lucky it will come hours later, but most of the times, not at all. And all that in this scorching heat. When I was a child and did not want to eat something, my mother always used to say : “….eat up, just think of the starving children in Biafra…” Now I do not have to think of Nigeria any longer (remember, I lived there once) – I have all this right on my doorstep.
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We forget sometimes how bad other people get it and I feel for all those people having to queue up daily for the water truck. It puts it all into perspective when you see people moaning on social media about not being able to make a cup of tea!
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. . attitudes, like those you describe, are a perfect reflection of the ‘self-absorbed’, ‘self-obsessed’ state of much of what passes for ‘society/community’ in the modern, developed world. I realise that this is a sweeping generalisation but one only has to observe the ‘selfie’ craze to understand what I’m referring to.
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Sadly, Alan I fear you are right
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so true, those that take for granted, tend to shout loudest
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Reblogged this on madebysteffieb.
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It’s very sad and so true x
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Yep, it is a shame when the well runs dry. We all take our natural resources for granted. It is a real pity and as you have written “the water is not missed till the well runs dry.” I’ve lived in those shoes as a youngest on the farm when my dad hauled water in a galvanized tank on a trailer from a town 7 miles from our farm. It was water for the livestock and for us to drink, etc.
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