Thank goodness for the rain. It’s not an easy task, emptying your bath out on the lawn - humping heavy buckets up and down the stairs, with water sloshing over the top - but it is something I've done a couple of times recently to try to keep alive what, before the recent deluge, looked like a large area of sandpaper.

I am not alone. One of my neighbours did the same, complaining about how it nearly broke her back.

When you haven’t had any rain for weeks, maintaining your garden can be tough. Coming home from work, my spirits plummet at the thought of at least an hour’s watering, filling the can from the outside tap and reviving the plants in pots, each drooping after the unrelenting heat of the day. Then there’s the flower beds…

It’s a cut-throat business. You water one plant, you feel obliged to water the next… As living things, I have a - probably stupid - notion of each plant watching me, thinking: “Why not me? Please come to me, I’m parched…”

As the dry spell went on, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) announced it was hiring a ‘water specialist’ to teach British gardeners how to ‘drought-proof’ their gardens. Questions from desperate gardeners asking how to save dry gardens have increased by 26 per cent this year, with the organisation expecting the number to rise even more.

The RHS is working with Cranfield University to train the UK’s first garden water scientist. He or she will explore ways to improve water provision in gardens by adopting new technologies and encouraging behavioural change among gardeners.

With water being such a precious commodity, I would never resort to a hosepipe, and from the look of people’s lawns during the dry spell, neither would most of us, although I did spot the occasional sprinkler in use. During the heatwave people wore their yellow lawns like a badge of pride. A lush green one - like the Queen’s at Windsor Castle, exposed by a drone photo - would attract black looks and disparaging comments.

Talk of hosepipe bans reminds me of the summer of 1995, when reservoirs ran almost dry, water was transported across Yorkshire by tanker, and swimming pools were emptied.

It kept us journalists busy for months. I remember getting into trouble for failing to recognise the newsworthiness of one story - the Yorkshire Water boss revealing that he had not had a bath for three months, but took showers instead. Not so unusual, I thought - I have a shower-obsessed husband who has not taken a bath for 20 years. But the story made national headlines.

Of course, what we call ‘drought’ isn’t anything in comparison with droughts in the developing world, where, in baking hot climates, rain does not fall for many months, leading to widespread famine and death. All we have to worry about is parched grass and the demise of a few plants.

But it’s all relative. In the UK we are not accustomed to long, dry spells. Most years, we are lucky to have a weekend of dry weather, let alone two months. So when it happens, whether gardeners or not, we struggle to cope.

There are, however, some advantages for gardeners in prolonged dry spells. Our lawn normally needs mowing once a week, but this summer the grass has barely grown at all. This has pleased my husband, who is always assigned the task, immensely.