The Wilt Alternative Read Online Free PDF

and lavished

their affection on humus, two pigs, a dozen chickens and a goat, Bertha was receiving Eva's

glowing account with a stoical smile. Wilt smiled stoically back and wandered out through the

french windows to the summerhouse and stood in the darkness looking hopefully up at the dormer

window. But the curtains were drawn. Wilt sighed, thought about what might have been and went

back to hear what John Nye had to say about his Organic Toilet.
    'To make the methane you have to maintain a steady temperature, and of course it would help if

you had a cow.'
    'Oh, I don't think we could keep a cow here,' said Eva. 'I mean we haven't the ground

and...'
    'I can't see you getting up at five every morning to milk it,' said Wilt, determined to put a

stop to the awful possibility that 9 Willington Road might be turned into a smallholding. But Eva

was back on the problem of the methane conversion.
    'How do you go about heating it?' she asked.
    'You could always install solar panels,' said Nye. 'All you need are several old radiators

painted black and surrounded with straw and you pump water through them.'
    'Wouldn't want to do that,' said Wilt. 'We'd need an electric pump and with the energy crisis

what it is I have moral scruples about using electricity.'
    'You don't need to use a significant amount,' said Bertha. 'And you could always work a pump

off a Savonius rotor. All you require are two large drums...'
    Wilt drifted off into his private reverie, awakening from it only to ask if there was some way

of getting rid of the filthy smell from the downstairs loo, a question calculated to divert Eva's

attention away from Savonius rotors, whatever they were.
    'You can't have it every way, Henry,' said Nye. 'Waste not want not is an old motto, but it

still applies.'
    'I don't want that smell,' said Wilt. 'And if we can't produce enough methane to burn the

pilot light on the gas stove without turning the garden into a stockyard, I don't see much point

in wasting time stinking the house out.'
    The problem was still unresolved when the Nyes left.
    'Well, I must say you weren't very constructive,' said Eva as Wilt began undressing. 'I think

those solar radiators sound very sensible. We could save all our hot water bills in the summer

and if all you need are some old radiators and paint...'
    'And some damned fool on the roof fixing them there. You can forget it. Knowing Nye, if he

stuck them up there they'd fall off in the first gale and flatten someone underneath, and anyway

with the summers we've had lately we'd be lucky to get away without having to run hot water up to

them to stop them freezing and bursting and flooding the top flat.'
    'You're just a pessimist,' said Eva, 'you always look on the worst side of things. Why can't

you be positive for once in your life.'
    'I'm a ruddy realist,' said Wilt, 'I've come to expect the worst from experience. And when the

best happens I'm delighted.'
    He climbed into bed and turned out the bedside lamp. By the time Eva bounced in beside him he

was pretending to be asleep. Saturday nights tended to be what Eva called Nights of Togetherness,

but Wilt was in love and his thoughts were all about Irmgard. Eva read another chapter on

Composting and then turned her light out with a sigh. Why couldn't Henry be adventurous and

enterprising like John Nye? Oh well, they could always make love in the morning.
    But when she woke it was to find the bed beside her empty. For the first time since she could

remember Henry had got up at seven on a Sunday morning without being driven out of bed by the

quads. He was probably downstairs making her a pot of tea. Eva turned over and went back to

sleep.
    Wilt was not in the kitchen. He was walking along the path by the river. The morning was

bright with autumn sunlight and the river sparkled. A light wind ruffled the willows and Wilt was

alone with his thoughts and his feelings. As usual his thoughts were dark