I quite often wonder if our change to a greener lifestyle is failing. Like when I once again show up at the supermarket having forgotten my own shopping bags at home, or when my husband brings home an extra large container of chemical weed kill, or I stay in the shower just that bit longer than it really takes to wash my hair or I put Argentinian blueberries in the shopping basket or I do jump in the car for a short journey or I yet again forget to switch the modem off or ...
These are the times when I need to remind myself of the progress we have made, and this week actually gave me a few hints that we are going in the right direction.
It started when I looked at the National Geographic quarterly green supplement. As previous editions it had several articles with various green information from garden advice and seasonal cooking to green celebrities and model towns. After reading it I realised that there was hardly anything new in it for me. This was all stuff I knew about! This might sound boring, but to me that was quite an achievement. Imagine that, I now have so much green knowledge that National Geographic can't teach me anything... Well, that is obviously not the case, I am sure there is still lots for me to learn, but it was good to realise that I do know more now than I did 9 months ago. I am moving up the ranks in the green brigade...
The most encouraging thing however happened during a thoroughly ungreen event. At the weekend we ended up driving(!) to one of these big shopping centres that contains just about every chain store Britain has ever seen, so basically a shrine to modern consumerism and the exact opposite of sustainable living. Thankfully this doesn't happen very often,(I think it is the first time we have been there since Christmas), but we had various reasons for going - it wasn't just random shopping.
It made me feel rather sad to see all this money being spent seemingly without any regard for real needs, resources, waste etc. Lunchtime however cheered me up - not because it was a spectacular meal, but because my kids made me proud.
In true shopping centre style we were in one of the chain restaurants and they always give out some kind of activity pack to entertain the kids. It seems that even these businesses are beginning to catch on to the green trend and the theme of this pack was actually recycling. Although I am not convinced about the restaurant's genuine commitment to reduction of waste, I was impressed by the ease with which my children completed the activities. I was very happy that my 5 year old could easily name things that can be recycled, reused, given to charity or cpomposted, it obviously seemed very natural to her to do this. I was even more impressed that my 3 year old knew what should go into the different bins, eg. flowers into garden waste bin, magazines in the paper bin etc - how does he know? I decided to take this as a massive pat on the back. Well done us, we seem to have got some kind of message across to the kids.
This is probably enough self gloating for now, if I don't stop I might start thinking we have successfully become green already! Fact is that we still have quite some way to go - but hey, we might as well celebrate along the way, it makes it all more fun.
Sunday 30 May 2010
Sunday 23 May 2010
Ants
A war happened this week in our house! No, not a spectacular marital dispute, not even another stand off with my very stubborn 3 year old - but we had an invasion and I simply had to act. Wednesday morning we came down to the kitchen to find ants crawling everywhere! I was not amused, I have a serious dislike to ants inside the house. It might have to do with growing up in a house with regular ant infestations despite my parents' never ending attempts at keeping the little black creatures outside, but whatever the reason for my dislike I knew these ants had to get out of my kitchen asap.
Not long ago I had read that bicarbonate of soda is a deterrent for ants, so I straight away grabbed a tub from the cleaning cupboard and sprinkled everywhere. It doesn't work! the ants were happily walking all over it!
So I turned to my trusted friend in a crisis: google. As always I ended up with a wealth of information and an uncertainty about how much of it was actually true. Unfortunately one fact seem to be popping up again and again: never kill individual ants inside the house, the ant will release a scent that the fellow ants will pick up and they will all come to the funeral. This was worrying not least because I had frantically been killing ants all morning, what else was I supposed to do, ask them politely to leave? It is concerning that ants apparently have this built in kamikaze instinct - 'my pal just died, so I should definitely head to the same place'. In a war situation that is a frightening enemy.
Anyway I also got a list of various stuff that is supposed to keep ants away, incl. cinnamon, red chili powder, black pepper, vinegar, vaseline, chalk and baby powder. Some of them I quickly dismissed, e.g. the black pepper. I sneeze when I put pepper in to cooking, so sprinkling it all over the kitchen in the middle of hay fever season seemed a bad idea. Chalk didn't seem very convincing either, apparently you can draw a line with chalk and the ants won't cross it - but frankly I found that hard to believe unless it was a really, really thick line.
Vaseline however seemed worth a try, I kind of imagined that to an ant it wouldn't be pleasant to walk in, so I smeared vaseline round the door, on skirting boards, the edge of the floor - more or less everywhere and then I sat down to watch. Somehow I had imagined that the ants would just vanish, but they kept reappearing from other places. So I decided to try something else and chose chili pepper. A few minutes later I had a rather sticky red substance around the kitchen door consisting of vaseline topped with chili. Surely this would do the trick.
I watched the gaps in the door where the ants originally seemed to come in and the numbers there definitely diminished, but every time I looked at the end of the kitchen counter, there were hordes of them there. Where were they coming from?
I looked in all the cupboards under the counter, but no black creepies. I checked for gaps in the floor or the walls, still no success. So when my husband phoned the poor man got a long rant about these mysterious ants appearing out of nowhere.
I spent a long time that day watching the same corner of the kitchen, I even sprayed some vinegar solution in case that worked, but despite my efforts ants were still appearing and I had no idea where from. Desperation was therefore setting in, when my husband appeared with a tub of ant kill. I am sure the prospect of me ranting all night about ants made him think that on this occasion chemicals were needed. I am not proud of it, but I grabbed the small container and sprinkled away.
And then I realised a place I hadn't checked: my 2 tomato plants on the kitchen counter. I lifted them up... and hordes of ants came crawling. I am now guessing that all my mysterious ants probably came from the plant - they were already in the house before I started my vaseline/chili campaign. Hmm - this kind of leaves me with a dilemma, because I am now not sure if that sticky red stuff actually did work to keep ants outs, after all the steady stream of newcomers did slow down dramatically after putting it on, or if it was only thanks to my chemical warfare that the kitchen was ant free the next morning??!
So what have I learned. Well, besides from the fact that Bicarbonate of soda definitely doesn't work as an ant deterrent the main lesson is probably that I need to calm down. To be truly green I cannot run around becoming obsessed with getting rid of ants (or anything else for that matter) instantly - it leads to bad decisions. So next step on the green path: learn to chill!
Not long ago I had read that bicarbonate of soda is a deterrent for ants, so I straight away grabbed a tub from the cleaning cupboard and sprinkled everywhere. It doesn't work! the ants were happily walking all over it!
So I turned to my trusted friend in a crisis: google. As always I ended up with a wealth of information and an uncertainty about how much of it was actually true. Unfortunately one fact seem to be popping up again and again: never kill individual ants inside the house, the ant will release a scent that the fellow ants will pick up and they will all come to the funeral. This was worrying not least because I had frantically been killing ants all morning, what else was I supposed to do, ask them politely to leave? It is concerning that ants apparently have this built in kamikaze instinct - 'my pal just died, so I should definitely head to the same place'. In a war situation that is a frightening enemy.
Anyway I also got a list of various stuff that is supposed to keep ants away, incl. cinnamon, red chili powder, black pepper, vinegar, vaseline, chalk and baby powder. Some of them I quickly dismissed, e.g. the black pepper. I sneeze when I put pepper in to cooking, so sprinkling it all over the kitchen in the middle of hay fever season seemed a bad idea. Chalk didn't seem very convincing either, apparently you can draw a line with chalk and the ants won't cross it - but frankly I found that hard to believe unless it was a really, really thick line.
Vaseline however seemed worth a try, I kind of imagined that to an ant it wouldn't be pleasant to walk in, so I smeared vaseline round the door, on skirting boards, the edge of the floor - more or less everywhere and then I sat down to watch. Somehow I had imagined that the ants would just vanish, but they kept reappearing from other places. So I decided to try something else and chose chili pepper. A few minutes later I had a rather sticky red substance around the kitchen door consisting of vaseline topped with chili. Surely this would do the trick.
I watched the gaps in the door where the ants originally seemed to come in and the numbers there definitely diminished, but every time I looked at the end of the kitchen counter, there were hordes of them there. Where were they coming from?
I looked in all the cupboards under the counter, but no black creepies. I checked for gaps in the floor or the walls, still no success. So when my husband phoned the poor man got a long rant about these mysterious ants appearing out of nowhere.
I spent a long time that day watching the same corner of the kitchen, I even sprayed some vinegar solution in case that worked, but despite my efforts ants were still appearing and I had no idea where from. Desperation was therefore setting in, when my husband appeared with a tub of ant kill. I am sure the prospect of me ranting all night about ants made him think that on this occasion chemicals were needed. I am not proud of it, but I grabbed the small container and sprinkled away.
And then I realised a place I hadn't checked: my 2 tomato plants on the kitchen counter. I lifted them up... and hordes of ants came crawling. I am now guessing that all my mysterious ants probably came from the plant - they were already in the house before I started my vaseline/chili campaign. Hmm - this kind of leaves me with a dilemma, because I am now not sure if that sticky red stuff actually did work to keep ants outs, after all the steady stream of newcomers did slow down dramatically after putting it on, or if it was only thanks to my chemical warfare that the kitchen was ant free the next morning??!
So what have I learned. Well, besides from the fact that Bicarbonate of soda definitely doesn't work as an ant deterrent the main lesson is probably that I need to calm down. To be truly green I cannot run around becoming obsessed with getting rid of ants (or anything else for that matter) instantly - it leads to bad decisions. So next step on the green path: learn to chill!
Sunday 16 May 2010
Birthday cake
As part of the green project we have been trying to cut down on food with incomprehensible lists of ingredients. There is something rather bizarre about eating stuff that you don't actually know what is and I am not talking about exotic fruits or rare sorts of flour, but all the chemicals, additives etc that exist in a lot of food.
I am definitely no Michelin starred chef and as a working mum I often need something quick and easy to feed the family, so I know exactly why a lot of us end up eating fish fingers, beans and other culinary 'delights'. But I have managed to change my track record to some extend and it has brought some surprises with it.
E.g. for years my daughter refused to eat sausages, she said they were horrible; but since we started buying most meat from the local butcher this has completely changed and she will now happily finish a plate - and ask for seconds. Same story goes for burgers - at a visit to an organic farm she suddenly realised that burgers can be very delicious and Daddy ended up with only one bite to himself.
The problem is that we are so used to the chemical substitutes that the alternative can be hard to find, or be rather expensive. I was therefore delighted when my husband brought home an article on homemade food colouring - just in time for my son's 3rd birthday. Children's birthdays usually end up as a rather horrendous cocktail of additives, chemicals and far from natural colours, so this was my chance to show that things can be different.
When making your own food colouring you basically use the juice from cooked fruit or veg and I was all set to go when I came across the first problem. A lot of fruit produces pink juice! That will be great for my daughter's next birthday, but somehow a pink train wasn't really the plan for this birthday party. The article did suggest to make green icing using spinach, but frankly the idea of chocolate cake with spinach icing didn't sound very good to me and probably even worse to my son who hates spinach. So I decided to opt for the darkest fruit I could find and ended up with a small tray of bramble - obviously imported from somewhere, so not exactly local, but sometimes compromises have to be made. And I did manage to create a liquid of a reasonably dark colour - definitely not princess pink. So far so good.
Then it started going down hill. I had opted for plain sugar icing, because it is simple to make and that way I could avoid buying ready made stuff with additives in it. I had however forgotten to check the cocoa level in the cupboard and the tub was empty! My chocolate icing plan was out of the window. This meant I was down to 2 colours: dark pink and white.
I was still optimistic it could be done - one mishap wasn't going to spoil my ambition of a totally natural birthday cake!
So I started spreading the white icing... Which very quickly turned into white icing filled with little brown specks of chocolate cake crumbs. Not good. It all looked rather dirty and not very attractive. I had used up all the red(ish) icing, so couldn't just cover it up and I was very quickly running out of time before the birthday guests arrived. This was the part when my ambition collapsed!
I needed something to attract attention away from the 'dirty' white icing and started rumaging through cupboards. What did I find: a box of mini smarties and some sprinkles. Perfect! Bright and colourful, nobody would notice the brown specks.
And the point of this story is? Maybe that no birthday can be complete without a few chemical additives? Hopefully not! The point is actually that it is not that difficult to make your own food colouring, if I can most people can. The only thing to remember is not to be as unorganised as me, check you cupboard for ingredients before shopping rather than 15min before the guests arrive!
Here is a picture of my efforts - even if I didn't quite succeed!
PS If anybody fancies giving homemade food colouring a go this is the article I worked from:
http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/824504-it-s-the-icing-on-the-cake-naturally
I am definitely no Michelin starred chef and as a working mum I often need something quick and easy to feed the family, so I know exactly why a lot of us end up eating fish fingers, beans and other culinary 'delights'. But I have managed to change my track record to some extend and it has brought some surprises with it.
E.g. for years my daughter refused to eat sausages, she said they were horrible; but since we started buying most meat from the local butcher this has completely changed and she will now happily finish a plate - and ask for seconds. Same story goes for burgers - at a visit to an organic farm she suddenly realised that burgers can be very delicious and Daddy ended up with only one bite to himself.
The problem is that we are so used to the chemical substitutes that the alternative can be hard to find, or be rather expensive. I was therefore delighted when my husband brought home an article on homemade food colouring - just in time for my son's 3rd birthday. Children's birthdays usually end up as a rather horrendous cocktail of additives, chemicals and far from natural colours, so this was my chance to show that things can be different.
When making your own food colouring you basically use the juice from cooked fruit or veg and I was all set to go when I came across the first problem. A lot of fruit produces pink juice! That will be great for my daughter's next birthday, but somehow a pink train wasn't really the plan for this birthday party. The article did suggest to make green icing using spinach, but frankly the idea of chocolate cake with spinach icing didn't sound very good to me and probably even worse to my son who hates spinach. So I decided to opt for the darkest fruit I could find and ended up with a small tray of bramble - obviously imported from somewhere, so not exactly local, but sometimes compromises have to be made. And I did manage to create a liquid of a reasonably dark colour - definitely not princess pink. So far so good.
Then it started going down hill. I had opted for plain sugar icing, because it is simple to make and that way I could avoid buying ready made stuff with additives in it. I had however forgotten to check the cocoa level in the cupboard and the tub was empty! My chocolate icing plan was out of the window. This meant I was down to 2 colours: dark pink and white.
I was still optimistic it could be done - one mishap wasn't going to spoil my ambition of a totally natural birthday cake!
So I started spreading the white icing... Which very quickly turned into white icing filled with little brown specks of chocolate cake crumbs. Not good. It all looked rather dirty and not very attractive. I had used up all the red(ish) icing, so couldn't just cover it up and I was very quickly running out of time before the birthday guests arrived. This was the part when my ambition collapsed!
I needed something to attract attention away from the 'dirty' white icing and started rumaging through cupboards. What did I find: a box of mini smarties and some sprinkles. Perfect! Bright and colourful, nobody would notice the brown specks.
And the point of this story is? Maybe that no birthday can be complete without a few chemical additives? Hopefully not! The point is actually that it is not that difficult to make your own food colouring, if I can most people can. The only thing to remember is not to be as unorganised as me, check you cupboard for ingredients before shopping rather than 15min before the guests arrive!
Here is a picture of my efforts - even if I didn't quite succeed!
PS If anybody fancies giving homemade food colouring a go this is the article I worked from:
http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/824504-it-s-the-icing-on-the-cake-naturally
Monday 10 May 2010
Selfish green people
Last week I came across another interesting article in the Ecologist: apparently research suggests that when we act green we do it for selfish reasons and not for the greater good. That got me thinking! Why exactly is it we are doing this and what are we getting out of it. I realised that we probably do get a fair amount self satisfaction out of being green.
When we started I wanted to see if it was possible to live an ordinary family life the green way and I think it is, nobody in the family appears to have suffered serious trauma from this project; but I am wondering if I am becoming a bit smug about the whole thing.
I have never been the preaching type, and I try to not wind up everybody I know by shoving green living up their noses constantly, but maybe I do sometimes think to myself that I am morally on higher ground?
The truth is that in some circles of society there is definitely prestige in living the green life, and maybe gaining some of that prestige is as much a factor in our decisions as actually saving the planet.
I tried to analyse which parts of our green lifestyle has been most successful, and not surprisingly they are the ones that have a direct impact on the here and now. When I run around switching off lights etc to save energy, I do it just as much to save money as to save the planet. When I get on my bike to go to town rather than take the car I do it both for the sense of achievement as for the carbon footprint. When I potter about in the garden trying to grow something edible I feel some kind a connection with nature and the seasons, although that is a load of nonsense, because I would be very miserable if I had to be fully self sufficient and actually survive in Nature's conditions. When I walk the kids to school in the rain I probably like doing imaginary head shaking at all the parents in the cars. When I clean with vinegar I just might be giving myself a pat on the back.
The ones that have been less successful are the ones that cost money or otherwise make life more difficult. I mean we haven't fully given up on the car and we are highly unlikely to do that. We haven't even changed to a smaller more environmentally friendly car, because it is too expensive, and frankly if we were very very serious about being green we should just sell it altogether!
Likewise we don't buy 100% local produce (although we get a fair bit), because we would need to allocate more money to buying food and therefore give up on something else.
So where does that put the future of the Planet if we are really mainly doing it for our own gain? Well that depends, because if we can make it seriously attractive to be green lots of people are likely to do something. If it gave your image a massive boost to have a compost in your garden, lots more people would have them. If it was considered cool to arrive to work on a bike, lots more people would do it. But right now this is not the case and the 'eco brigade' has a lot of work to do to remove the image of treehuggers.
I don't think it matters why people do green stuff, if they do it for the Planet that is great, if they actually do it to achieve a feeling of self satisfaction that is fine as well - as long as it gets done.
So here is my advice to people who wants to be green, but never really get much further than thinking: find some seriously committed people to hang out with! That way you end up doing green stuff to improve your image, while hopefully saving the planet at the same time.
When we started I wanted to see if it was possible to live an ordinary family life the green way and I think it is, nobody in the family appears to have suffered serious trauma from this project; but I am wondering if I am becoming a bit smug about the whole thing.
I have never been the preaching type, and I try to not wind up everybody I know by shoving green living up their noses constantly, but maybe I do sometimes think to myself that I am morally on higher ground?
The truth is that in some circles of society there is definitely prestige in living the green life, and maybe gaining some of that prestige is as much a factor in our decisions as actually saving the planet.
I tried to analyse which parts of our green lifestyle has been most successful, and not surprisingly they are the ones that have a direct impact on the here and now. When I run around switching off lights etc to save energy, I do it just as much to save money as to save the planet. When I get on my bike to go to town rather than take the car I do it both for the sense of achievement as for the carbon footprint. When I potter about in the garden trying to grow something edible I feel some kind a connection with nature and the seasons, although that is a load of nonsense, because I would be very miserable if I had to be fully self sufficient and actually survive in Nature's conditions. When I walk the kids to school in the rain I probably like doing imaginary head shaking at all the parents in the cars. When I clean with vinegar I just might be giving myself a pat on the back.
The ones that have been less successful are the ones that cost money or otherwise make life more difficult. I mean we haven't fully given up on the car and we are highly unlikely to do that. We haven't even changed to a smaller more environmentally friendly car, because it is too expensive, and frankly if we were very very serious about being green we should just sell it altogether!
Likewise we don't buy 100% local produce (although we get a fair bit), because we would need to allocate more money to buying food and therefore give up on something else.
So where does that put the future of the Planet if we are really mainly doing it for our own gain? Well that depends, because if we can make it seriously attractive to be green lots of people are likely to do something. If it gave your image a massive boost to have a compost in your garden, lots more people would have them. If it was considered cool to arrive to work on a bike, lots more people would do it. But right now this is not the case and the 'eco brigade' has a lot of work to do to remove the image of treehuggers.
I don't think it matters why people do green stuff, if they do it for the Planet that is great, if they actually do it to achieve a feeling of self satisfaction that is fine as well - as long as it gets done.
So here is my advice to people who wants to be green, but never really get much further than thinking: find some seriously committed people to hang out with! That way you end up doing green stuff to improve your image, while hopefully saving the planet at the same time.
Sunday 2 May 2010
Green Cleaning 2
Last time I wrote about cleaning was just before Christmas. It is now May and a spring clean is long overdue. Unfortunately this blog isn't really about some fantastic cleaning feat of mine, I am never going to be a domestic goddess - but this weekend I finally managed to take something off my to do list.
One of my pet hates is cleaning the oven. I just find that the most boring and annoying job on the cleaning list, and it always gets left far too long! This time was no exception: the fact is (and I really shouldn't be admitting to this) that until yesterday my oven still had a layer of grease in the bottom from the overflowing Christmas turkey. I know it is quite horrible, but because I am lucky enough to have 2 ovens the 'turkey oven' just kind of got decommissioned, as I could always think of other more important things to take care of. I realise I am not putting myself in a good light here, but I wanted to make the picture clear as to the state of the oven, when I finally got round to tackling it.
As I have more or less cleared the cleaning cupboard of chemicals I expected to have quite a job on my hands. Even after researching my options and choosing to go for the 'soak in bicarbonate of soda layer' option I wasn't fully convinced that sprinkling a layer of the white stuff, spraying it with water and then leaving it overnight was going to rid me of seriously burnt on Christmas dinner. Guess what, it actually did work! I am still amazed. OK, the oven is not 100% stain free, but there is definitely no more turkey grease in there.
Even better it wasn't particularly hard work and the real bonus was avoiding the headache from the intoxicating fumes of standard oven cleaner. Result!
So after this success I decided to have a good look in the new Green Cleaning book I have been given as a present. Fascinating reading - with a tub of bicarbonate of soda, a bottle of vinegar and a few lemons you can clean almost anything, not to mention get rid of weeds, take out splinters easily, remove unwanted perfume and lots of other things.
I found a couple of things I really wanted to try, but it isn't really season right now:
- Apparently it is easy to clean the grill on the BBQ with bicarbonate of soda and vinegar - must remember that after our next barbecue here in 'sunny' Scotland.
- Thankfully the really frosty season should be over for now, but when the winter returns, I will need to try this: spraying the car windscreen with a solution of 3 parts vinegar to 1 part water should keep the windows ice and frost free.
What really grabbed my interest was the suggestions for killing weeds, it seems you can either pour vinegar on them or for patio/path areas you can sprinkle salt. After spending most of a day pulling weeds out of the garden I most definitely have to try that.
Or how about making your own fizzy drink like the Victorians with bicarbonate of soda - that sounds like fun.
I will let you know how I get on...
You might have noticed that most of the suggestions that caught my attention were the ones that didn't really involve cleaning! I think that sums up my attitude rather well, because although I obviously do clean the house, I just can't get exited about it. The fact is that however fascinating I think it is that basically any cleaning job in the house can be done without manufactured chemicals I am unlikely to try it out, because freshening up the grout whether with lemon juice or chemicals will never make it to the top of my priority list.
What I will do though is place my green cleaning book somewhere prominent as a reminder of how easy it can be (even the oven) and maybe one day I just might decide to freshen up the colour in the carpet using vinegar...
One of my pet hates is cleaning the oven. I just find that the most boring and annoying job on the cleaning list, and it always gets left far too long! This time was no exception: the fact is (and I really shouldn't be admitting to this) that until yesterday my oven still had a layer of grease in the bottom from the overflowing Christmas turkey. I know it is quite horrible, but because I am lucky enough to have 2 ovens the 'turkey oven' just kind of got decommissioned, as I could always think of other more important things to take care of. I realise I am not putting myself in a good light here, but I wanted to make the picture clear as to the state of the oven, when I finally got round to tackling it.
As I have more or less cleared the cleaning cupboard of chemicals I expected to have quite a job on my hands. Even after researching my options and choosing to go for the 'soak in bicarbonate of soda layer' option I wasn't fully convinced that sprinkling a layer of the white stuff, spraying it with water and then leaving it overnight was going to rid me of seriously burnt on Christmas dinner. Guess what, it actually did work! I am still amazed. OK, the oven is not 100% stain free, but there is definitely no more turkey grease in there.
Even better it wasn't particularly hard work and the real bonus was avoiding the headache from the intoxicating fumes of standard oven cleaner. Result!
So after this success I decided to have a good look in the new Green Cleaning book I have been given as a present. Fascinating reading - with a tub of bicarbonate of soda, a bottle of vinegar and a few lemons you can clean almost anything, not to mention get rid of weeds, take out splinters easily, remove unwanted perfume and lots of other things.
I found a couple of things I really wanted to try, but it isn't really season right now:
- Apparently it is easy to clean the grill on the BBQ with bicarbonate of soda and vinegar - must remember that after our next barbecue here in 'sunny' Scotland.
- Thankfully the really frosty season should be over for now, but when the winter returns, I will need to try this: spraying the car windscreen with a solution of 3 parts vinegar to 1 part water should keep the windows ice and frost free.
What really grabbed my interest was the suggestions for killing weeds, it seems you can either pour vinegar on them or for patio/path areas you can sprinkle salt. After spending most of a day pulling weeds out of the garden I most definitely have to try that.
Or how about making your own fizzy drink like the Victorians with bicarbonate of soda - that sounds like fun.
I will let you know how I get on...
You might have noticed that most of the suggestions that caught my attention were the ones that didn't really involve cleaning! I think that sums up my attitude rather well, because although I obviously do clean the house, I just can't get exited about it. The fact is that however fascinating I think it is that basically any cleaning job in the house can be done without manufactured chemicals I am unlikely to try it out, because freshening up the grout whether with lemon juice or chemicals will never make it to the top of my priority list.
What I will do though is place my green cleaning book somewhere prominent as a reminder of how easy it can be (even the oven) and maybe one day I just might decide to freshen up the colour in the carpet using vinegar...
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