My hydrangeas are wilting. The rose petals are going brown. Half the pots on my patio have shrivelled up to the constant soundtrack of unripened apples falling.

The only source of colour in the dried-up desert of my back garden is my lawn – because it’s plastic.

Our Thames Water hosepipe ban has been in force for two very long weeks, and in that time we’ve had a mere five minutes of spitting rain.

There’s only so many trips you can make to and from the kitchen filling up buckets and watering cans – it barely touches the sides of what’s needed.

But on Friday night, while enjoying an evening drink with friends in the garden, I heard the now-unfamiliar gurgling sound of water. I wondered if someone on the street had installed a water feature.

On Saturday, as I sat reading the newspaper outside, I heard the same incessant noise. It was surprisingly loud. It sounded more like... a hosepipe. But surely someone wouldn’t be so brazen?

The noise went on all day. By the evening my curiosity – or call it nosiness if you want – got the better of me. From the top floor of my house I can see most of the gardens on my street. And there, in plain view, was a hosepipe being used to fill an enormous paddling pool.

I will admit having a fleeting thought for my hydrangeas: the sad-looking leaves crying out for water. If my neighbours could so openly flout the rules, could I?

No. No. That way madness and social unrest lie.

So instead I posted on Facebook: ‘What would you do if your neighbours were flagrantly flouting the hosepipe ban?’ To say I was inundated with replies from both friends and strangers is an understatement.

Nicole Lampert was horrified when, two weeks into the Thames Water hosepipe ban, she discovered her neighbour was flouting the rules – even filling up a large paddling pool

Our whole society depends on people following rules that we are told are good for us. It’s just a crying shame when people don’t, says Nicole

For some it brought back those heady days of the pandemic, when neighbours were calling the police on each other for daring to talk to someone in the garden. Several people labelled me a snitch; one suggested I call Chairman Mao. One, who told me to keep my big nose out of it several times (no, he wasn’t the neighbour), got blocked for his efforts.

Several told me about the unfairness they saw on walks or bus rides in their own neighbourhoods. While most gardens are so parched they have almost turned to dust, others are gleaming emerald with health. The popularity of underground irrigation systems for those who can afford it means that people might be running their hose equivalents without anyone knowing (save for the tell-tale condition of their gardens). The unfairness stings like a slap in the face.

Friends in other countries queried how they could live in much hotter places without ever having experienced a ban on water usage. It is certainly amazing that after one of the rainiest Januarys on record, we don’t have enough water to keep alive not only our gardens, but also the bugs and animals that live in them.

But it appears no one in this country is willing to invest in the infrastructure we desperately need. The last reservoir was built in the UK in 1992. In the meantime, the growth of AI may have an impact on our water usage as data systems require a huge amount of water for cooling. A typical AI facility uses around two million litres of water per day – and the UK is home to more than 500.

And then there is the immense waste of the water companies who got us into this mess. One of my friends said she too was planning to flout the ban because the drought is their fault. She is certainly right to be furious. Thames Water is nearly £20billion in debt, yet continues paying its top executives ridiculous salaries and had to be stopped from paying bonuses.

The company received a one-star rating for environmental performance in 2024 – in the same year it was responsible for nearly 300,000 hours of raw sewage discharges into waterways. About 570 million litres of water per day is lost to leakage, according to the latest Thames Water report.

In the meantime, since 2020 our bills have gone up by 50 per cent as we pay for this horrendous mismanagement.

Thames Water really is a horrific story of what happens when a privatised utility company is allowed to run riot with a basic human requirement. So flouting the hosepipe ban may seem justifiable on a point of principle in these circumstances.

And yet... I’m not an innate rebel or law-breaker. Rules are there for a reason. And while I don’t quite remember the time people used standpipes for water in the 1976 drought, my weather app doesn’t show any rain on the way – so conserving water to stave off disaster seems reasonable.

So I look at my wilting hydrangeas. My browning flowerbeds. The empty hose. And I think ‘no’. I will be good. I will not break the rules – even when others do.

Our whole society depends on people following rules that we are told are good for us. It’s just a crying shame when people don’t.