Today a contractor turned up on behalf of South East Water and installed a water meter at my request.

Diarmuid Gavin gives his top tips on preparing your sustainable garden for summer

After one of the longest and coldest winters most of us can remember, the first shoots of spring are slowly starting to emerge. And while it is still too early for the nation’s gardeners to start preparing the beds and borders in their gardens, there is plenty to be done indoors, particularly when it comes to seeding.

We've been thinking about the things a business can do to "go green" and that won't cost them a penny and it was a pretty easy list to drum up. The simplicity of going green is that a business will not only become environmentally friendly and help towards sustainability but will actually cut costs; any business that cuts costs is saving money - saving money equates to more profit. So it's what they call a win-win situation.

1. Switch off the Lights.

Whilst many PCs have energy-saving modes there's clearly room for improvement in these days of high energy prices and greater green awareness. That's where Edison comes in.

Arguably driving in itself is not a green activity, especially when you don't have an economical or an environmentally-friendly car. And let's be frank, how many of us greenies actually have a green mobile let alone the world's public at large?

It's so annoying to get junk mail don't you think? It's usually for all the stuff that you don't want; another credit card, mortgage, car insurance... Actually that's as far as I can remember about what sort junk mail we used to get because it's been quite a long time since we saw that deluge of wasted paper on our doormat - We joined the MPS the Mailing Preference Service.

One of my pet peeves in this obsession people have with preheating ovens. Why do they do it?

Is it because the fire had to be roaring before it was hot enough to cook the pot on? Maybe the Arga needed to be left a while until the coal was burning efficiently?

But these days we don't have so many of these ancient "appliances" (I still love to cook over a real fire on occasions) and the world has changed in terms of how we consume energy - we need to conserve our energy reserves.