This morning I put three loads in the washing machine, one dark colours and two whites.

The laundry basket is still not empty, and in a couple of days’ time it will once again be full to the brim.

I seem to spend half my life keeping on top of it, so I wasn’t surprised to discover that British women spend more time washing clothes than they do washing themselves.

And women in Yorkshire do at least two-and-a-half loads, taking around two hours, every day. Those aged 40-plus from Leeds do the most, tackling 17 loads every week, claims a survey by a ‘laundry specialist’ (from these results, surely we can all claim to be one of those?) It’s no joke, though. I’m forever trying to reduce the amount of laundry I sort through.

I blame it partly on teenage habits. When I was young I’d wear a shirt to school for two or three days, maybe more. Nowadays – and I’m talking about girls here, it may be different for boys – children douse themselves in deodorant and body spray, even spraying it on their clothes. Some days I refuse to enter my eldest daughter’s room without a face mask.

This cocktail of chemicals leaves a stench on clothing that, in my opinion, is worse than the smell of sweat. So, after being worn just once, everything is discarded (usually on the floor, but that’s another story).

Socks by the dozen also appear, many without their partner, so one is washed one day, the other, which is later found, the next.

Add to this the constant hair and body washing – my eldest daughter uses more towels in an evening than Travelodge does in a week – it’s no wonder the machine is never off. I can hear it whirring in the background as I write.

On average, I wash one load a day, as do 72 per cent of British women. I’m not counting the three-item washes my husband throws in.

Of the family, I generate by far the least amount of laundry – probably around 90 per cent less than anyone else, including my husband. It’s ironic how I’m always up to my eyes in it.

I can’t imagine how women coped in the days before the automatic washer, with dolly tubs, blocks of soap and the like. No wonder they set aside special days devoted to it.

I wonder what they would they make of the recently-unveiled machine with a 12-minute cycle. That would go down a storm in our house. It would free me up to do so many other things, like picking up dirty shirts, searching for lost socks and ironing.