'Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast.'

Well, Shakespeare may have meant sleep, but for me the 'chief nourisher' has to be my bath. Notice I personalise it to my bath - it's very much my own private ritual, and it must be observed correctly.

My bath is:
-Never shorter than half an hour, and often three times that
-Always accompanied by a selection of at least 2 books
-Anywhere from twice a week to every night
-Scorchingly hot
-Full of bubbles
and
-Always alone.

My bath is the only time I can find privacy. In my house, even a closed bedroom door is likely to be knocked upon, interrupted. And for someone like me, who values alone-time enormously - seriously, I get very very unhappy when I have to be around people all the time - that can be pretty unbearable. But in my bath I am totally separated from everything and I don't need to be contactable. It's relaxing, cutting myself off from the world - no phone, no email, no conversation, just me and my fiction. Or as it was tonight, Grant's Myths of the Greeks and Romans. The only other time I get that is when I'm asleep, or waking up in the dead of night.

(On that note, if you've never tried it, leave your curtains open one night so that the dawn light wakes you up gradually and naturally. I quite often let myself be woken at about half past 4, and then lie in the dark, enjoying the warmth of my bed, the fact that I don't have to get up yet, and my aloneness. Even setting my alarm for half 6 when I have to be up at 7 works - you feel like you've stolen a piece of time back from your life.)

So that is what my bath is to me. I know that even when I'm married, even when I have multitudes of kids running around, or grandchildren everywhere at Christmas, when my life seems devoted to others, I'll still be able to lock the bathroom door and lose myself - or find myself- in a tub of scalding hot water.