We don't have a "no-shoes policy" in our house. The only time my husband removes his outdoor footwear is to have a shower or to get into bed.

And although I have a pair of cosy slippers, it rarely occurs to me to put them on. It's almost 10pm now and I'm still in my boots.

Many, if not most of our friends, however, discard their footwear as soon as they have walked through our front door and happily pad around our stripped floors in their stockinged feet.

Initially I took this to mean they respected our home more than we do ourselves, or they wanted to move in. It seemed very informal.

We had some new friends over for lunch last week who even brought their own slippers with them and actually shamed my husband into taking off his dusty brogues.

"It's not healthy to keep your shoes on all the time," pointed out the mum.

" I don't think that is the case in our house," said my husband doubtfully.

"You had better watch out for that lethal nail in the living room and our kitchen floor is very slippery."

What then happens, of course, is that when we go to other people's houses, we don't automatically start undoing our shoe laces.

Sometimes we have been asked not to trample in until we have revealed our feet. It has been quite embarrassing, especially given that we're often having a socks crisis.

The reason for our reluctance must be that neither us of grew up in a no-shoes household.

My husband's family were hoteliers and it's not customary for paying guests to have to take off their shoes at reception, or before joining a dinner dance. As we all know, evening dresses look pretty dreadful without the right heels.

I'm not sure why my family never got into the habit, except that my dad didn't like putting up the heating in our draughty Victorian house and I needed to wear Eskimo boots all winter to keep the frostbite at bay.

Our friends argue that a no-shoes policy protects your carpets. Perhaps there is some truth in this, although cleaning your soles on the doormat is a good preventative measure.

But floor coverings get plenty of abuse from other means. Our six-month-old baby, Max, has spurted unpleasant bodily fluids in most of our rooms.

Although I've managed to clean up the mess, there are tell-tale patches all over the place where I've had to be pretty aggressive with a scrubbing brush.

Max, who shows no favours, was recently sick on my feet in the living room. I'm so glad I was wearing my wellies at the time.

I'm beginning to wonder when this no-shoes thing started. I don't remember ever having the practice imposed on me in other people's houses when I was a child.

Maybe it started a few years ago when every house I went to had a plain beige fitted carpet, which looked awful as soon as you breathed on it. In fact, I bought a newly-converted flat that had one.

It did look attractive . . . in an impractical sort of way. And I might have adopted the no-shoes rule if I hadn't spilt a whole bottle of red wine on it during my first week there.

I was so upset. It was a really nice wine.