Wow… when I read of some communes which are having water rationed so severely… tankered in and small daily limits set per household etc etc…
It’s clear that there’s no water available for anything non-essential… and, of course, non-essential to one person might very well be different to another…
Phew… no rain on the horizon… drat and double drat…
Would that include a well ?
That’s really strange, as cats don’t normally drink water if it’s next to thier food. Ours never have, and we have to put it away from the food, otherwise it never gets touched. They would rather drink from a muddy puddle that clean water next to thier food 
I think it means you can’t fill pools over 1m3 but can top them up ?
Which is basically what you said … Doh. 
Ours always preferred the dog’s water (and her kibbles) so now we just have the one large water bowl. However, as mentioned above our cat would rather drink from a watering can or an ice bucket. Similalrly, our dog prefers water from a muddy puddle to that from a stream or the river
They are probably getting their beneficial bacteria. Just be careful stagnant pools don’t have red algae which can be lethal for dogs.
They didn’t until I served the water first at the correct time and then left a gap.
Unhooked the washing machine this afternoon as Rob le Pest’s post above. Nearly 50litres of water, and I didn’t flood the buanderie! A couple of happier hydrangeas tonight, plus the spinach. And since will have 3 loads of sheets from the gîte this weekend should have a fair bit to spread around. Very pleased!
Well done Jane!
Just seen the cats’ former favourite biological water source on my top-up round - it’s a large bricklayer"s bucket that gave them 17x12x11inches deep(at all times) bio-infested water… it is now empty. I think it’s completely evaporated which is scary
As far as I am aware… yes… since our Mairie got very concerned when they discovered a neighbour had put a “hidden” pipe into the well and was using it to keep his swimming pool topped-up…
If it’s a communal well, then that’s understandable. We have a private well. When we were in yellow alert, it was specified that the restrictions were only for potable water. When we went into orange alert, the updated document just didn’t mention potable water which was strange. The maire is shut down now for August, so I’ll have to contact the prefecture to find out.
I’m fairly sure that after Yellow… it’s Orange… and it’s water… full stop.
Let’s face it… water comes from a source in the earth, somewhere… whether it ends up coming to us through pipes via industry to our taps or pulled up from a well… or taken from a natural fountain/lake…
edit: I’m not going to push the point about water restrictions any more…
Surely no-one can be ignorant of the problem/difficulties
Individual Mairies will explain what can and can’t be done around them…
and, Yes, I agree it can appear strange that Water is scarce in some places, yet other places are still coping …
Frankly, if everyone is careful and only uses what they absolutely have to… it will surely benefit the whole country… and I suspect that such might well become the norm in future years (if not sooner).
Phew… heading off to a cooler place… hopefully there’s sufficient space in the freezer 
In New Zealand I remember we weren’t allowed to use washing machines in a drought. Even if our area was not affected. That was not the point. And anyone moaning about topping up their swimming pool - though I do get the point about algae - would have got a Kiwi send-off.
Yesterday, I was asking a local how their pool was faring…
Nope, haven’t lost much by evaporation as it’s not in direct sunshine much of the time…
Cover goes on at night to keep the water warm.
Yes, the level is down a bit, we could fill it right to the top, but we’ve not done so this summer… and that’s fine.
Seems their pump is fitted lowdown and the owner reckoned this allowed them to keep the pool circulating without needing to add water…
No idea what it is all about, but they’ve not taken extra water on board and have a clean pool.
I always thought that water was finite and forever and merely circulates around. It falls from the sky to earth where all us animals use it for ever and then send it down through various drains only to be pumped back up again, reused and evaporated back to the clouds from where it pours with rain.
Simple. Does that make anybody feel better? 
I’m off for a swim. Cheaper than sitting here with the clima on.
The water cycle, but its all ending up in the wrong places at the wrong time in extreme amounts
47% more hours of sunshine than average for July.
94% less rainfall than average for July.
Interestingly, there is another, completely separate water cycle that occurs between the earths surface and the mantle. This cycle seems to be in complete equilibrium. Water is drawn into the mantle in subduction zones and returned via volcanoes and directly from the mantle in a process that’s a little like sweat from pores. My geologist acquaintances love to try to bamboozle me with such geological trivia.
