From my Substack diary for Thursday, 2nd. July 2026

It is blustery out there with a light to moderate breeze and moderate cloud cover – the sort of cloud that could bring a rain shower, although I suspect our gardens and farms may not benefit from a good watering today. The water in my pond is almost down to the level at which the leak exists, having dropped dramatically since Monday. The habitat for the fish is about 50 per cent of normal. This is the strangest leak I have ever known, as the pond has remained full or almost full throughout the heatwave of last week and the drought of the previous week. Why has it lost so much water in just three days? A mystery that will have to remain as I have no idea.

Call me a geek if you like – I probably am in some ways – but for some years I have entered home energy data into a spreadsheet. I think it is a habit borne out of my professional career in energy, as I have read my meters every Sunday night for over 30 years, first in my 10th. floor council flat in south London, then in my Victorian house in the centre of Newton Abbot, and for the last 9 years in my 1960’s bungalow in the suburbs.

For an energy geek this is an interesting dataset as we have three radically different built forms. In general a flat will waste less energy than other built forms and the Victorian solid-wall house will waste the most, even if it is mid-terrace as mine was. My semi-detached bungalow will be somewhere between the two extremes. If you are on a tight budget a flat is the built forms to go for.

When I had smart meters installed for gas and electricity, which was my choice and my landlord approved, I took the decision that I would continue with my old Sunday night meter reading ritual, and I would recommend others with smart meters to do the same. It is a useful check should anything go wrong, particularly with communication between your meters and your energy retailer.

My records for the last nine years in the bungalow show that the efforts I have made to reduce electricity consumption have paid off, with a consistent annual drop since a high in 2020. A fall in electricity consumption is one thing, but what about energy prices, which have more-or-less consistently been on the increase since 2020? Well, there is good news there too as my electricity bill has fallen year-on-year for six years. And that is despite the increase you might expect following retirement in 2022, after which I spent a great deal more time at home boiling my own kettle for tea rather than the one at work.

So I am very pleased with my efforts which have largely arisen from purchase of energy efficient appliances – especially lighting – but also from lifestyle changes.

Yesterday I used 4.99kWh of energy at a cost of £1.84, which is at or perhaps slightly below average for this time of year. If as a country we invested more in a resilient distribution network and we reduced our dependence upon gas to make electricity my bill would be reduced considerably but, sadly, we have failed to engage in such wise policy. I feel I have done my bit to reduce my impact on our life-support systems, it’s about time the Government did theirs!