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 the North 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?) 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 on their clothes.

Some days I refuse to enter my eldest daughter’s room without a face mask.

This cocktails 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).

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.

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

I wonder what they would 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 and ironing.