It’s been quite a summer for rain, yet last year we experienced drought. Some would say “was ever thus” and yes, I do remember very wet summer holidays in my childhood, but extremes are more frequent and records are broken each year. How can we make sense of these conditions and what can we do about them?

In our faith, water plays an important part; it represents forgiveness - we baptise with water, washing away our sins and being reborn in Jesus Christ. In John 4:14, Jesus referred to himself as the ‘Living Water’; he recognised that without water there is no life.

What is your relationship with water? I must admit that in summers like this one, I am not as careful as I could be, I enjoy a bath, I prefer not to adhere to ‘if it’s yellow, let it mellow’, I wash clothes too frequently, run the tap when washing up, use the hosepipe to water the garden…in short, I am profligate with water. Note #1 to self: use less water by way of fewer baths, shorter showers, and save water with more water butts off downpipes.

Yes, we have an abundance of water this year, but so much of it is polluted (note the Triathlon swimmers in the North Sea last week, all coming down with upset stomachs). Many of our beautiful rivers can no longer sustain abundant life. We blame the water companies for mismanagement and the farmers for runoff from pesticides or animal excrement. But we too are complicit. If we eat chicken raised in a factory farm, effluent is known to flow into the nearby rivers, if we prioritise whiter-than-white laundry or sparkling clean dishes we are using chemicals that pollute. Note #2 to self - reduce meat intake, eat organically as much as possible, reconsider cleaning products, lobby my MP for better management of our waterways, support a charity such as WWF-UK, Canal & River Trust, Surfers against Sewage, Keep Britain Tidy, all of whom are working to promote sustainable water systems.

Sustainable Development Goal No 6 is ‘Universal access to safe and affordable drinking water’. The 2030 target is for this to be achieved globally ‘leaving no one behind’, yet 26% of the global population do not have this access. In the UK, we take clean water for granted, let’s do all we can not to squander it.