When is it time to pull the plug on shared bath times?

've a tale to tell about a bathtub... and my god if that doesn’t make you eager to carry on reading I don’t know what will.

- Steve Canavan

Wilf and Mary still love having a bath together. Photo: Adobe

First some context. On Sunday morning we went to watch Mary-my eight-year-old-play football.

She's played footie since she was five, and when she first started was so hopeless and inactive that during games she was often mistaken for a goal post.

My mum came to watch her and, after three minutes, declared, 'well, she'll never make a footballer'.

However, at some point in the last three years she has got semi-ok and now kicks the ball quite a lot, sometimes even in the right direction. Indeed only a few weeks ago she actually scored a goal, when the best player on the team smacked a shot from the edge of the area which hit Mary's bottom and flew into the top corner.

The rain was pouring down on Sunday and we spent 50 minutes huddled on the touchline in our waterproofs. It was a particularly unpleasant experience for Wilf, our six-year-old, who gets dragged along to all the games and has zero interest in how his sister fares but does enjoy getting to sit playing on an iPad (the only way to stop him complaining and whining and generally annoying the hell out of us).

As soon as the match ended, we prized the iPad out of Wilf's grip and bundled the kids into the car, then as soon as we got home threw them both in a hot bath. This in itself is an interesting point.

My kids are eight and six and have always shared a bath, not because we're thrifty and want to save on the water bill (though obviously that's a bonus) but because they enjoy playing together.