• I HAVE been watering my plants with waste water, not watering my bit of grass at all, and basically monitoring every drop of water very carefully.

I go out with my sketchbook, most days, and passed a woman watering the grass verge outside her house in Highgate on Wednesday.

And when I passed La Sainte Union school at Parliament Hill it was being pressure-cleaned with water for hours on end. In fact I had to walk a mile across Hampstead Heath to get away from the racket.

I couldn’t help wondering what use my efforts are, in the face of big houses in Highgate, and big schools, with pretty buildings, as I walked over the parched fields.

HELEN STANIFORTH, NW5