I water the garden with bathwater

We’re in France, sitting around the table at the campsite, and we can hear fire engines in the distance. My sister checks her phone to see how close the wild fires are. Near or far, it’s worrying. People are being evacuated from their homes; nature charred.

Soon after, my phone vibrates. A text from Thames water to announce the hosepipe ban in north London, where I live. I’ve never had a message like this before. I take this rule seriously and when we return to London, I don’t get out the hose.

The small shell-shaped paddling pool remains empty and up-turned. The cold plunge hasn’t been filled in some time anyway, after the rat-tail maggot infestation. Now, the wood of the cask is splitting in the heat. In autumn, it will be burned on the fire.

Not only do I keep the hose hidden away, I don’t water the garden at all, deciding that all water supplies should be protected. I’m not sure what impact this will have on my garden, particularly the patch of wild meadow, but I hope that it will survive.

But while bathing with my children, in tepid water that cools our skin after a day spent dipping in and out of hot sunshine, I remember that we can use this same water to replenish my thirsty garden. I ask everyone to keep the plug in.

This morning, after drinking my coffee and writing some poetry, I go upstairs with a big plastic tub and dip it into the bathwater until its full. I have a light pink metal jug, for hair-washing, and I fill that as well. I decide to carry both down the stairs.

I like to be efficient with my time but sometimes - often - I try to do too much at once and it goes wrong. This is one of those times. The water slops out of the plastic tub, soaking the staircase. I warn my children that the stairs are very wet and ask for help.

My daughter takes the light pink jug and places it by the back door. I take the tub out and pour it across the dry, scorched meadow. All the flowers have faded in the sun; the green stems and grasses have yellowed; the bees haven’t been around so much.

I return to the house, to re-fill the tub, tiptoeing up the still-wet stairs and carrying it down more carefully. This time, I throw water across the earth lining the garden, home to rose bushes and shrubs. It crackles as the water hits it, like a gasp of relief.

I want to drench the earth so that it can hold some of the moisture when the sun is high in the sky and pouring its heat across the land. I reassure myself that I can use tonight’s bathwater again tomorrow. I go back to the house, up the wet stairs, refill.

On the third or fourth run, I start to find it a bit laborious. I wonder if there might be a way to funnel water out the bathroom window, straight from the bath to the land. I wonder if I’m being lazy. Not everything needs to be efficient. I continue.

I imagine the times when a task like this was just part of daily life. When days were about tending to the land, doing the necessary chores, protecting resources, eating food you’d grown, going to bed when the sun dipped down and darkness descended.

A simpler life. A harder life. Maybe?

Now, we rush from iPhone to laptop; home to office; school to home. We glue our faces to screens and buy everything we need, rather than popping to the local shops. Friendships and family relationships outside the home exist largely in these screens.

I’ve spent the summer holidays noticing. Noticing how quickly and easily I grab my phone when I’m bored. How the phone is in my hand more often than a book. How my children notice, and ask to go on their screens.

To counter this, I force myself to put my phone to one side, out of sight, when I drink my morning coffees. I stare at the garden. I get bored. My thoughts flatten out to nothing. And then, they slowly take shape. A poem appears.

I cherish the online world, and all that it has given me in terms of flexibility with my work, as a writer, teacher, entrepreneur. And I also know that I need to live more fully in the world before my eyes. The real one. With the people, plants and animals I love.

I know this, and I’m working on it.

After seven or eight bathwater runs, the garden looks dampened and significantly less thirsty. I hope that the meadow will perk up and the bees will return. There is still some bathwater left, so I take vessels up to fill until it’s emptied out.

I’ll do runs from bathroom to garden through the day.

The stairs are still wet. I get the mop and use the puddles of bathwater to mop away the dust from yesterday’s small birthday party, children’s feet bringing the garden into the house. Sweet wrappers tucked into sofas. Empty party bags dotted about.

It’s not yet 9am and I feel I’ve achieved something important. I’ve communed with the garden, with the earth, with the land, and given something back. This conversation needs to be two-way. The earth spoke, and I listened.

Annie x

This essay was free to read. If you’d like to support my writing, you can do that by becoming a paid subscriber, if you’re not already. As well as weekly essays and poetry, you’ll have access to the archive with 300+ creative work/life essays.

If you’d like to start writing more yourself, or to take your practice more seriously, you might like to join The Creative Way Collective. A monthly pre-recorded writing workshop, a monthly writers’ circle (for conversation) and weekly co-writing sessions.

And if you’re not sure what you’d like to do, but you’re ready to re-think your work-life, I have a course designed for you. It’s called What do I want to do with my work/life? A creative coaching course, just £30, that starts Monday 7th September.