Water Log: Day 6 (Saturday 4th August)

I am clean! I am clean! I am clean!

You get the point, it's shower day, I'm excited. As I eat breakfast I can't wait to get into the bathroom and turn on the taps. A short five minute non-power shower uses 35 litres of water, so I set my alarm clock and jump on in.

Our shower takes ages to find the right temperature, you have to move the taps with millimetre like precision to find that point between ice cold and scolding - but I don't care and get in anyway. It is wet, refreshing, invigorating and just damn good.

The five minutes is enough to wash the anti-gravity hair and have a good body scrub. As I turn the taps off I am so pleased to be clean. I plugged the bath beforehand, so also have about half a tub's worth of warm water collected, which I use to shave my legs and generally splash around like a child, beaming.

As I step out, it occurs to me that I now have 35 litres of what they call grey water sloshing around that can be used for all sorts of other stuff. If I hadn't shaved my legs, this would make excellent clothes-washing water - or for those with gardens prime plant-thirst quencher.

I don't have to wash any clothes thankfully, although if water week was going on longer this is exactly what I would do. So I get a bucket and instead use the water as an alternative to toilet-flushing. It works surprisingly well and there seems to be a never ending supply. I use around 16 litres over the course of the day and the bath is still about a quarter full.

Feeling rather smug about my sudden water riches, I splash out later in the evening and wash the salad I'm having for dinner. As I do, it occurs to me that I could have done this all along - wash the salad over a bowl and simply transfer this into your washing-up rations. Hey presto fertiliser poisoning avoided. Oh well, shortage makes you get creative, I'll know for next time.

As one last treat, I have a fantastically good cup of Earl Grey tea.

I know I'm on the home run now, with my water efficiency figures well in target and enough bath water to last for at least another day the hardest part is over. There may even be some water spare for more treats tomorrow.

On the subject of my increasingly reclusive lifestyle, the friend in Brighton who has taken to calling me smelly was saved from a visit this weekend. Just a few of the anticipated problems - how could I not flush in other people's houses, we would inevitably eat-out as the plan was to hit gay-pride, and how much water does a car use on a trip to Brighton anyway? It just wouldn't have been practical.

Apparently it takes 7 litres of water to make one pint of beer (one blogger says it can be as much as 300 pints indirect water), so I would also have been sober - entirely unprecedented! Now that's just no fun, is it...

Water used:
35 litres - 1 shower (yay)
8 litres - 1 toilet flush
2.25 litres - drinking water
0.5 litre - washing teeth and retainers
0.5 litre - 1 cup of tea
0.25 litres - washing salad

Total: 46.5 litres