Already old hands

As if already old hands at this kind of country living, I heard them tell the others that they had only four rings of water left in their tank.

Sweeter and sweeter

She explained that the substitute sugar in artificially sweetened drinks and lollies not only passed through the body intact, but also through the sewerage processors – which meant, as she said, that our water was getting sweeter and sweeter – all the water on the planet becoming sweeter and sweeter; an idea that not only turned our stomachs but depressed us all quite a lot.