Day two in the water saving house... my aqua obsession continues.
Bodily hygiene has so far remained manageable. I'm not smelling - as far as I can tell anyway and nobody has said otherwise. My hair is taking on that two-days unwashed greasy look, but if I don't walk past mirrors too much it's ignorable.
Towards the end of of the day the skin on my back gets itchy and I am missing washing my hands regularly, which seem to pick up a grubby feeling throughout the day.
I have been closeted from too much reaction to cleanliness issues as I've been working at home all day. I am due to be out and about on Wednesday and Thursday evening, so more creative thinking may come into play then.
Despite six toilet trips today, I again managed to restrict myself to one flush making a massive difference to daily water total. The toilet is starting to look mucky, so I look at it less.
I decided to treat myself to some cooked dinner. The water conservation mentality has obviously settled in as almost without thinking I picked up the smallest sauce pan I own to cook rice in - the milk pan size that usually sits unloved in the back of the cupboard.
This meant I only needed 1/2 litre of water to cook with (about 1/2 pint) as opposed to usually 2 to 4 litres at a guess. Draining the rice was a bit of a luxury, but I mistimed it and all the water evaporated leaving the rice dry cooking for a few minutes - enough to need a rinse afterwards. Thoughts popped into my head about the environmentally friendly qualities of risotto rice, which absorbs all the water that's needed for cooking without any waste.
The 'chili con-Quorn' mince mix was already prepared in the freezer I just added kidney beans. I would usually rinse these but as they're preserved in water anyway this was a luxury that could be missed.
It's a struggle for me eating fruit and vegetables that haven't been washed. Yesterday's salad somehow seemed passable - tomatoes and lettuce are so clean looking anyway. Today's strawberries had a lot of grey dust stuck to them in places and I ended up throwing away one's that just didn't look edible. I also have a thing about pesticides - a bit of dirt won't hurt you as my mum always says, but what about all those chemicals?
The mountain of dirty dishes grows in the kitchen to be dealt with on another day. On the up side, having so far saved 19.25 litres the chances of taking a shower sometime in the next 5 days are good. I'm glad of small luxuries.
Water used:
8 litres - 1 toilet flush
1.5 litres - drinking water
0.75 litre - washing
0.5 litre - washing teeth and retainers
0.5 litre - cooking rice for dinner
0.25 litre - rinsing rice
Total: 11.5 litres
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