water water everywhere

One of my favourite childhood books, still on my shelf!

I'm hoping today to fix (again) the pipe in the kitchen that has resulted in big puddles across my kitchen floor and also meant I've not been able to wash clothes or dishes this week. I've been thinking a lot about water this week (as well as electricity - what a fascinating life I lead!)
We had a bill last week that showed that, unsurprisingly, our water usage went up considerably last year (blooming pool). Before I got too worked up tho, it helpfully told me that the average water use in the UK is 150 litres per person and with 3 of us in the house, we're nowhere near using what 2 average people would use, so I was temporarily mollified. Only I was also intrigued, as I know that in any comparison, it depends who you're comparing with.

So, interesting facts obtained from the internet (obvious warning, you can't trust everything you read on t'internet, so I've given you the links too):

They use a little less in Germany, and "The German Federal Environment Agency has calculated that on average only 4 liters of the 130 is used for drinking and cooking and almost 50 liters is used for personal hygiene, such as taking showers and baths."  http://everylittledrop.com.au/how-much-water-does-a-person-need

We could consider our "water footprint" which takes into consideration the amount of water used to produce all the stuff we consume. Vegetarianism fares well compared to beef eating. And it reminds me of the t-shirt worn by my boyfriend the first time we met that states "Save water, drink beer". Knowing that, obviously, beer production uses way more water than drinking plain tap water alone, the humour of this t-shirt was wasted on me, and yet despite this, we still got together :)
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-water/we-use-how-much-water-scary-water-footprints-country-by-country.html

This was more the statistic I was after, that "In many developing countries, water consumption is as low as 20 litres a day for the average person (what we used in Britain in the 19th century)." http://www.uswitch.com/water/how-much-water-use/ Some women in parts of Africa and Asia carry 20kg of water on their heads, and have to walk an average of 3.7 miles to collect it.
http://www.purewaterpeople.co.uk/blog/2014/04/facts-about-water-infographic/
(lots of other watery facts there so if you only check one link, this is a good one!)

And 748 million people don't have access to safe drinking water. How utterly deplorable is that?
http://www.wateraid.org/uk/what-we-do/the-crisis/water

I am going to continue to do what I can to reduce my water consumption (we can't as a planet go on at the increased rate at which we demand it) and appreciate the lovely clear drops that easily fall from the several taps I have ready access to. May you also enjoy the water today :D