let you in a little secret, but don't tell him, please.

Bags no fluoride here from southern water in South Hampshire. We had it in Birmingham. ( nothing to do with ponds or keeping secrets. )

I can't understand the logic of hiding your spending or bills or mistakes from the person you live with, presumably love and with whom you share your life.
I certainly never did and he always got an honest answer to any questions.
Anything less made a mockery of our love and commitment.

I once cleaned the stepping stones around our pond with bleach, unfortunately some bleach went into the pond. I said nothing, and the fish survived! Yay! Got away with that one then

Jura2....That's good to hear that you have plenty of water where you live and that it has not made much impact on the wastage of a night's water tap running unnecessarily.. X

I don't think the cost of water is that high. We had a pool ten years ago and was on a water meter. We had a new liner fitted and it took several days to fill the pool (10metres x 5 metres) 10 ft deep end. It was certainly higher than usual....but nothing mind blowing.

Totally get you about the water- for sure. As you know, it was totally inadvertent- and I will make sure it won't happen again. I am very careful with water, showers only, wash everyday clothes on short washes at 30C, never water the lawn, etc, etc. Fortunately, water is not in short supply here in the Jura though, so don't feel so bad.

Poor Mr Jura, the nearest Willow Park is about 800 miles away, ahahaha.

My water tap is right next to a public walkway and when I first came here, children had a cheeky habit of turning it on as they passed. It cost me a fortune I did not have so it was paid off in instalments over a year!

But I arranged to have the tap's top taken off, so no one one can turn it without a special key which slots in, replacing the handle. Problem solved.

Dear Mr Jura,

I have information which may be of great interest to you and may even save you money in the long run but in order to impart it I need a little sweetener aka dosh.
I'm not a greedy sort of bloke, I'm only asking for what you might pay on your next water bill, f'rinstance.

Meet me in Willow Park between 10pm and 10:30 with
the readies in used notes.
I'll be the one in the mac and trilby (the other blokes similarly dressed are only on the lookout for nervy old ladies.)
TELL NO ONE, you never know it might get onto Gransnet and Facebook and that would be disastrous!

Sid the Perv Perp.

I don't mean to be unkind or judgemental but surely the point here is that so much water has been wasted . Whether our water bills are metered or not...surely we should all be more worried about looking after our planet than a high bill. I understand that we all hide mistakes and stuff we've done inadvertantly or not inadvertently from our partners/husband's (and l have several) but l cannot find the humour in a whole night of water running away for no reason. Sorry if l seem a goody two shoes....but surely l am not the only one reading this post that feels as l do .

chrissyh- but that is the very point- the amount is NOT the same annually- if I leave the gardent tap full on for the evening, all night and part of morning - it will be much higher !
And we get half year bills- no facilities for paying monthly. Off on hols now for 2 weeks (Southern Tuscany, our 13th visit this year, since we exchanged then bought 1 week timeshare there- spending 1 week before in the Hôtel part using points)- so will save water hey (but not money ahahaha)

High fives SunnySusie- partner in crime , pheeew x

Snap! I did almost the exact same thing about a week ago, drew back the bedroom curtains in the morning, realised the hose was snaking across the garden to the dry flower bed and then worked out I had left it on all night. Luckily only very slightly on, but we do have a meter. I zoomed downstairs as fast as possible, turned it off and coiled the hose up quickly. By the time DH came down I was serenely pouring out tea with an innocent expression on my face. The art of living harmoniously together is knowing when to remain silent!

Oh I keep lots of things secret from DH, usually things I've bought or the price of them! Or the time I parked the car on the drive for 3 days with the windows down and the keys in it! Only discovered it when the postman mentioned it, fortunately to me and not DH.

Sorry, I had to laugh

If your quarterly bills are high why don't you pay monthly by direct debit? It's obviously the same amount annually but it doesn't seem so bad splitting it into 12 payments.

In Scotland our water is not metered,. we still pay water rates. Maybe you need to move ???

I’d say prove it was me if he noticed ?

We recently spent 4 nights away from home in a relaxing, warm climate. It was warm when we got back too......I’d forgotten to disable the heating system.....it was left on the whole time ?

winterwhite I've done that loads of times, not just forgotten to lock front/back door, I also leave the keys in. After DH died I went out for a day & came back to find I hadn't locked the front door. I also frequently forget to close windows at night.

I was always better at "covering up" than DH, he was far too honest

We once put the water on to top up our pond, forgot about it and went to DDs for supper. Half way through pudding I said to DH ' Did you turn the water off?' No he said ' Did you? We made the half hour journey home in record time.The water was just spilling over the top into the garden . We now leave an obvious sign so we now the water is on. Luckily we are not on a meter .

Thought I'd got away with a £50 parking fine outside Kew Gardens, came home, paid online and forgot about it. Barclaycard bill arrives and I exclaim 'why is Richmond on Thames Council taking money from our account'. Oops, secret out. He laughed.

We all have our little secrets. Probably why we stay married! It doesn’t do to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth all the time.
?

Ha ha that reminds me of the time I went away for a week DH was at home, when I got back I realised I’d left the iron on (use the spare bedroom for ironing) the whole week. It never worked right again and had to buy a new one. He still doesn’t know to this day.

ouch, can't fill the pond anyhow, as there are a couple of tears in the liner on a higher shelf. Will have to get a team of helpers this autumn to empty the pond, make a large new shelf on south side for the bats, and replace with new liner and replace + add more local limestone chunks around it and make a nes escape ladder. Will have to use one of our large troughs to put the mud from bottom with all the 1000s of dragonfly larvae and alpine newts if some are left in October- and replace asap. No fish, as we want out pond to be for wildlife only.

I confess I have our pond turned on 24/7 for ages now. Just a tiny amount as the bloody heron & foxes have made a hole on the liner quite a way down & as it is a large pond it would be impossible to repair without draining the whole thing. TBH I haven't noticed our water bill is affected so it can only be a small amount of water being used.
Last time we had to empty pond- about 15 years ago we had 40+ fish & they were in large plastic dustbins for 2 days so I really do not want to do that again!