Pouring oil on trebled waters

I thought I had won a prize last week. I received through the post a rather nice green form with a sum of money printed slap bang in the middle of it.

The figure was £1,793, to be precise. I have never won any money before and I was in a fever of excitement as I read on. But, I was in for a shock. It wasn't those Reader's Digest numbers I dutifully fill in and send off each six months. In fact it was a new-style Welsh Water bill!

Ordinarily, I can guess when the water bill has arrived as Simon starts quizzing the staff about their personal toilet facilities, and asks them whether they could go before they arrive at work, rather than the minute they get here.

We also spend time ringing up the Centre for Alternative Technology to investigate thunder boxes and nettle toilets and have to calm down the housekeeper who always tells us, in no uncertain terms, that she is not employed as a latrine attendant.

This time the reaction was a lot more ballistic - our water consumption was three times its norm. In fact, it was larger than our friends' bill - and they run a 40-bed hotel.

We rang the water board's helpline. Why do they call them that? They would not even commit themselves to concede that triple last year's half-yearly bill is unusual. They intimated that if we were less profligate with their liquid gold, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I heard Simon boiling over as it was suggested we may have a "little" leak we hadn't noticed. The water board suggested that a customer services officer visited us to chat about our bill.

Simon, rather more forcefully than I report, explained that he didn't want a chat, he wanted an explanation. End of conversation.

After three phone calls a man did call round. Actually, he was a rather pleasant bloke and I felt for him as Simon had worked himself up into a volcanic mood over non-abnormal consumption and greeted the man spanner in hand.

In the end it took three minutes to sort it out. The meter reading was completely wrong; so wrong that we debated privately between ourselves that perhaps it was one of the helpline clerk's lottery numbers.

So, rather satisfyingly, it is Lodge one, Water Board nil. Next round is the budget account debate, because our monthly payment has been based on the lottery number reading rather than the one that resulted in a £700 reduction in our bill. I'll update the score next month!