Fun and games with the electricity board

Today I had the meter read for the first time in at least five or six years, if not more.

It's common but unspoken knowledge, here on this small island, that the meter reading guys, just under estimate the meters to keep everyone happy, and to save hiking up and down the steps to inaccessible places, where the meters are inside and the occupants of the houses are out,  - or hiding behind closed shutters... (I’m not going to admit to having ever done that, it’s all a bit of game.)

Only twice since I have lived here, has my meter been accurately read. Even though ever other bill says it’s estimated or exact. Recently there has been a crack down and meter reading gangs sent from the big smog. Non-locals, shipped over to do the nasty job of sticking lots of lovely yellow stickers stuck on front doors, saying words to the effect of ‘we called and you were out’. Understand the topography of the island, you will know that means a days’ work of climbing very steep climbing, as most of the homes are inaccessible by road.

A lot of people, almost the whole island population have had horrendous bills. – We are talking in the thousands, of course a lot of shouting about it, and I suspect some exaggerations in the cafe.

I’m possibly worrying unnecessarily.

How big, will be the difference between the guesstimated reading and the correct reading, some 3000+ units out, my blessing is that often the house is un-occupied, and closed up. When in residence my consumption of electricity is low, having few appliances, due to the simple life, and no air-conditioning. Summer I often sleep in the cool of the terrace, out of doors under the stars, in the cool evening air, I don’t even heat the water, preferring to showering under the garden hose, which has been laying in the sun, the water is hotter than the cool of the indoor tank which I can't be bothered to turn on and wait to heat up!

During the winter months I’m mostly away in the UK, but there are the advantages of being south facing, and on the sunny side of the town, in a house built of stone with walls about half a meter thick. Seldom do I need to turn on the electric heater, and the electric blanket gets used for half hour only on the coldest of January and February nights, even on this winters day I had my breakfast out of doors on the terrace in nothing more than cotton pyjamas.