I can say with all honesty that the most enjoyable moment of my day is spent in the bathroom.

From the moment I turn on the taps, I feel the stresses of the day evaporating. The nightly ritual of pouring bubble bath into the running water and wallowing in the the foam with a good book is the closest thing I get to bliss.

So I was amazed to discover that more than a third of Brits take just four baths or less a year. And 47 per cent of those questioned in a survey say that two of those baths are likely to be taken while staying taken at a hotel.

Showers are far more popular, with people taking an average of 227 every year. This is reflected in my home - my husband and daughters rarely take baths, using the shower daily, sometimes twice a day. Their reliance upon it is even more evident, since our old, leaking, mouldy shower has this month been ripped out. While work on a new one is in progress, they have been groaning and grumbling, complaining of feeling grubby and unable to wash their hair properly.

I admit, showers - particularly powers showers - are great for washing hair, jetting the scalp clean. But, however effective the shower, give me a bath any day of the week.

I sometimes wonder whether my shower phobia is linked to school, when, after double games, we had to shower in a brutally cold communal area with a floor like sandpaper and walls the colour of nicotine. It was horrible, and compulsory.

This doesn't seem to be the norm nowadays, as most schools have individual cubicles and pupils are not ordered in by commandant-like PE teachers. My daughters say they never use the showers at school, and don't know anyone who does.

Showers in people's homes were a rarity when I was growing up. There were no fancy, walk-in, marble-tiled affairs or glass-panelled wet rooms in those days. When someone said they had a shower it meant they stuck a flexible hose over the bath taps. Then you leant over to wash your hair.

To me, showers are something to be endured, not enjoyed. You can't lie back and read a book, or lie back and relax. You're simply getting wet, and in my experience, not wet all over at the same time, leaving half the body cold. And they're temperamental. The last time I had a shower, in a hotel, in the time I spent trying to work the dial and get the right temperature I could have run ten baths.

One advantage of my family's shower obsession is that I have our bath to myself. There's nothing worse than someone banging on the door when you've just got in.