Each and every time I so much as point the tip of shoe outside my front door of my house, or indeed leave the sanctuary of any building with modern day facilities, there is always one very important factor on my mind – the exact location of the next toilet.

It wouldn’t be so bad if this was age-related, but this factor has always governed my life. It is second nature for me to map every outing around the availability of porcelain bowls, power flushes and hand dryers.

Aeroplane travel delivers a particular kind of torture. I really enjoy the entire flying experience – not least because it means I’m actually going somewhere more exotic than Sainsburys – but I tend to feel a tad superstitious and have a few rituals I like to perform.

The first of these said rituals is to have a couple of drinks in the airport bar. This is particularly wonderful if you have an early morning flight – there’s something so deliciously decadent about sipping fizz in a bar at 4am that it’s irresistible. And it now feels so vital to my flight package that I can’t image how the plane would even be able to travel down the runway if I don’t indulge. Unfortunately this often makes me the owner of a very full bladder that is strapped securely into a seat and denied the use of the tantalisingly near facilities.

Turbulence is indeed my worst enemy.

At theatres and cinemas I feel panicked, trapped in the middle of a row. It sends immediate danger signals to my brain that are directly linked to my waterworks and it becomes inevitable that at some point I am going to have to disrupt at least 20 people to run to the loo. Seated by the aisle I can normally make it to the interval – just. However, I have to be ready to bolt from my seat like a bat out of hell to get to the ladies before the queue starts snaking round to the bar – meanwhile casting envious looks at the men breezing in and out of their facilities. I’m not proud to confess this but I have earned myself a few raucous cheers in life by biting the bullet and using the gents – and I’ve always been joined by half the other women waiting.

When queuing, I always keep my fingers and my legs crossed in the hope that at least some of the women in the cubicles can match my speed. I’m so fast that I can almost guarantee that the woman behind me in the queue will still be waiting in line when I emerge. I am truthfully mystified at what a huge percentage of women actually get up to in a toilet cubicle. The amount of time they disappear for suggests that that they must remove and carefully fold every item of clothing. They possibly even take the opportunity to paint their toenails before relieving themselvess. Hopefully we’ll eventually evolve to only need to go once a day. In the meantime I wish they’d introduce a fast lane into public loos.