Why all hotel room facilities should be road tested by exhausted, myopic middle-aged women

My partner, who designs houses for a living, puts the shower controls outside the reach of the spray, so that you don’t get a soggy pyjama sleeve full of either freezing cold or scalding hot water. For this alone (and for living with me) he deserves an MBE

The perils of the hotel shower can sometimes be too much to bear (Getty/iStock)

I’ve been back on the road gigging for almost two weeks now and I’m prepared for just about any eventuality. I have a show makeup bag, a normal makeup bag, a skincare toilet bag and a separate fleet of matching luggage for all my medicinal needs.

I also have a canvas tote containing sketching materials and a small foldaway easel (fat chance so far). In yet another bag, I have scripts, a receipts wallet, a phone charger, my “special fork from home” for meals on the run (I’m trying not to do plastic) and a small jar of mayonnaise because I have a very bad mayo habit, and anyway it’s very good for moisturising the elbows.

Then of course there’s my handbag, worn satchel-style so I don’t lose it, comprising a purse, phone, hanky, eye-drops, sugar-free butterscotch sweeties and a selection of key cards which I have failed to hand back.

This is another very bad habit, especially when staying in hotel chains. The other night I self-importantly informed a Hilton member of staff that their hotel didn’t have a third floor, so could they explain why they had they given me a third floor key card? At which point, he gently pointed out I was attempting to use a room key from a sister hotel 200 miles away. It’s the carpets: they confuse me.

Obviously in the “Big Case”, I’ve got my day wear, pyjamas and slippers, a selection of jaunty scarves and an enormous swimming costume (I expect this to remain bone dry, by the way), plus the requisite socks, bras and pants.

I also have a blanket which is embroidered with my name (almost as if I were a very special show-jumping pony) with matching sleep mask, ear plugs and a big bag of cough sweets, plus an apple, a midnight snack sandwich and a spare avocado for hotels that still aren’t smashing their own (most). I find if I sleep with it under my pillow, it’s ready for toast-spreading first thing.

You might think all this sounds excessive but one of the other “girls” in our cast of three hulks around a great big black-out blind which can be attached via suckers to any window that might have the audacity to let in a sliver of light, while my friend and fellow gigger Sarah Millican doesn’t leave home without a travel kettle – and who can blame her, after she once found a man’s pair of underpants in the hotel’s Russell Hobbs?

Oh yes, I forgot, I’ve also got an emergency corkscrew!

However, despite all this Girl Guide thinking ahead, the one thing I cannot be prepared for, despite 38 years of touring, is the madness of hotel bathroom designers.

For some reason, reinventing the way water comes out of a bath tap or shower unit has become an obsession with these people and sometimes, when I’m post-show tired and I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine, what I really crave is a simple pair of taps with a red spot indicating hot water and a blue spot indicating cold water.

This is what taps were like in the old days, remember, when… Actually it didn’t really matter how red the spot was on the hot tap, there was never any hot water unless your mum had given you permission to put the immersion heater on – but that’s beside the point.

What I despise most about hotel bathroom design is those that have the shower controls actually inside the shower, right next to the unit. Why is this even legal?

My partner, who designs houses for a living, puts his outside the reach of the spray, so that you don’t get a soggy pyjama sleeve full of either freezing cold or scalding hot water.

For this alone (and for living with me) he deserves an MBE.

I’ve stayed in posh spa hotels where the tap and plug arrangements require a physics degree to operate and the hotel has been forced to attach laminated instructions to the bathroom wall. Let’s face it: there is something about a laminated notice that screams 1970’s boarding house. You can have as many Michelin stars as you like in the restaurant, but as soon as a laminated sign goes up, you’ve blown it.

I have also stayed in five star hotels where the combi shower and bath controls are so complicated that I’ve ended up almost flooding the bathroom before ringing reception for technical support. Now let me tell you, this is the call that any young night porter dreads: a request from a middle-aged woman who needs help in the bathroom. From experience, I can guarantee that there is something about a slightly hysterical woman of this age who is only clad in a towel that puts the fear of God in them.

So, for sake of all young night porters, please, in future, can all bathroom fixtures and fittings be road tested pre-installation by an exhausted, myopic 50-plus female – preferably one whose hands are all slippery from face cream?

Next week: breakfasts.