Is it just me or is a bath far better than a shower?

Last week I returned from Italy with the itchy, irritable feeling I almost always get abroad.

All through our holiday I felt vaguely grimy, despite daily showers. When I got home and had a bath, my suspicions were confirmed: the water was grey.

According to Amanda Craig, nothing beats a lovely soak, steam and scrub, yet for decades we have been told that this is like wallowing in your own filth

To my mind, only a bath gets you properly clean. Nothing beats a lovely soak, steam and scrub, yet for decades we have been told that this is like wallowing in your own filth.

American films persuaded us showers were hip, hygienic places for the pumped-up washer. Baths, on the other hand, were supposedly for children or sad singletons with no more company than a scented candle. What bosh!

Showers may use less water, take up less space and be essential after muddy field sports, but in every other respect they are a curse. Instead of total immersion, you must stand in a human bird-bath and train a jet on each part of your body, leaving the rest of you exposed.

Worse, you must choose between water pounding on your head (washing out conditioner) or wearing an unflattering plastic cap.

Standing in a shower means looking at, and feeling, the effects of gravity, which nobody over 40 welcomes.

Where a bath supports the flesh, encouraging every muscle to relax, a shower pounds your skin into submission, needling it with spiteful squirts.

Every civilised culture has valued the bath. To float in a haze of Penhaligon’s Bluebell Oil, book in hand, is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Soak it up!

Amanda Craig’s new novel, The Lie Of The Land, is published in June by Little Brown