Panic!!

So I’m at work and my phone lets me know I have a voice mail..
I pick it up and listen..
“Hi.. this is a message for Miss Archer. This is Lauren from southern Water leakage detection team. Calling because we have come by and read your meter and the reading is showing really high consumption for the last 6 months, much higher than your usage previously”.
At this point I panic.
“We haven’t billed you yet so you wont get a huge bill landing on your doorstep. If you could call me back on 01903 ******…”
There was more to the message but I hung up and called back.
I spoke to a nice man who said Lauren was on  her lunch break. LUNCH BREAK?!?! What?? She leaves a message telling me somewhere I have an olympic sized swimming pool in my back garden (well not quite but the brain does start to go into over drive), and then goes on her lunch break?!?! How very dare she!

Anyway nice man (can’t remember his name so will call him Jason), Jason looks up my details. He said “wow yes that is rather a lot.”
“What are we talking? How much?” I ask.
“Well we haven’t billed you yet so I can’t say but I did a bill for someone yesterday and they had used (some huge number) cubic metres and their bill came to about £7500 and you’ve used (an even higher about that I cant remember) so I’ll let you do the maths.”

Panic! Sick feeling!

“There is no way I have used that amount of water.” I manage to say before taking a gulp of my scicilian lemon, ginger and honey tea (its very nice you know) wishing it was a large gin.
“Have you had any work done on the house?”
“Nope”
“Any leaks?”
“Nope.. they would have to be tsunami size leaks to use that much water.. I only had a drip from my toilet which was fixed in a matter of 2 days and only produced about 4 pudding bowls of water.”
“Built a swimming pool?”
“Have you seen the size of my house/garden?”
“Hot tub?”
“No”
“Didn’t leave the sprinklers on in the garden in the summer?”
“Well you know what I did think about it as I was concerned the grass wasn’t looking green enough. But no I did not use any sprinklers.”
“Oh” he laughed.
“and I don’t have a cannabis farm either. I am really stingy about my metered services.  My heating hasn’t been on yet this winter. I have a 17 year old who is allergic to water unless its the salty type. I do all the washing up in the evening, and I have the same washing machine. Nothing has changed.”
“So you’ve had no work done, you don’t have a hot tube or swimming pool and we have done no work near you.” He deduces.
” No no and no.. perhaps they read the wrong meter. Perhaps the meter is wrong, I’ve had friends who have had duff meters.”

Anyway, nice Jason explains that they will need to send someone round to have a look.

So it has been arranged for 24th in the morning. I am panicing.. I can’t afford a £80000+ water bill. I can’t afford a £800 water bill. I can only just afford my £283/year water bill I’ve had for the last 3 years since being metered.
I don’t own anything worth £8k+.

So now I wait until the 24th to find out my fate. Wondering if I can move abroad before then to avoid the huge bill I suspect is coming my way.

Perhaps Southern Water will be kind. Perhaps they will just bill me my normal amount, after all haven’t they got way too much water now? Thought they might be giving it away after the year of rain we have had.  Here’s hoping. *fingers crossed*