Petrol update

The fuel light came on in the car so I had to fill it up again on Tuesday - that's five weeks on one tank of gas, which makes me feel a little bit better.

However, I'd done about 475kms on my 34L of petrol. That's about 7.1L/100 kms - noticeably more than the 6.1L/100 kms the EECA fuel efficiency website rates the Honda Jazz at. I guess that's partly because I have just done short trips around town, but I feel there's plenty of room to improve my mileage here.

Number one priority: check my tyre pressure.

Drip drip drip tick tick

Still going on the tank of petrol - I think I'm about 2/3 through now.

Saving water

With Wellington's water crisis, talking about ways of saving water has gone mainstream.

As well as saving the baby's bath water for the garden, we've started showering with a bucket.

My Dad is catching the water from his washing machine in the laundry tub and siphoning it onto his garden. I reckon I might try doing that myself when I wash the baby's nappies today.

Save the environment - cut down the trees!

It's not often that someone will try to sell you a sawn-off tree as being good for the environment.

In this case, though, these trees are on the northwest of our house, shading everything with their big, leafy, albeit carbon-absorbing branches.

So although trees are good, pruning them to reduce our winter electricity use is way better.

They're growing on the neighbouring property, so this summer we approached our neighbour, who turned out to be absolutely lovely and very accommodating. He gave us permission to cut the trees right back.

The difference has been amazing. It's been way sunnier and warmer.

And the trees are already starting to grow again.