At the end of June, I was on holiday in the Lake District, each day we saw low cloud descend obscuring Skiddaw with accompanying showers. The fells around us were green and dotted with Herdwick sheep and in the meadows, hay was being made. Walking round Buttermere streams were cascading down the hillsides. Returning to Oxford I was aware how little rain had fallen, in my garden everything looked sad and brown and the reach of the Cherwell close to the Parks almost stagnant, very shallow and exposing the detritus of modern life; bottles, glasses and for some reason bike locks.

Although I have a water-butt it is of limited size, so I decided to recycle my shower water each day for the plants. Cutting down spent delphinium flowers and the minimal watering has produced a new flush of leaves, pale green and shooting upwards, the plant renewing itself. Carrying the water downstairs each morning made me think about the many thousands of women and children across the world who walk miles each day to collect water which is not always clean and safe to drink, but it is all that is available to them. In Britain we are so lucky clean safe water flows from our taps to quench our thirst and to wash in, but we must preserve that precious resource.