It is way past bed time and I have a busy day tomorrow but sometimes I just have to write.  I really enjoy writing when the mood takes me.  Unfortunately, most of the time, when I have to write invoices, cookery adverts and Twitter posts, the mood takes me somewhere else and no writing happens at all.

This evening, while browsing for cheap white vinegar and baking soda on-line I decided it was time for a new blog.  This will not have anything to do with cooking or recipes, not matter how interesting.  This will be the place where I write stuff for the sake of writing and I won't worry about visitor stats or whether all the views I do get are from robots.  This is where I will witter on about random stuff like larp and gardening and probably my kids.

This evening I will mainly be wittering on about cleaning.  I bet you are all feeling excited already.  As some of you know I am actually a very qualified (if that is possible) and experienced cleaner due to many hours of lovingly caring for a National Trust house.  I have even been on whole training courses on the subject of cleaning.  Seriously, you can spend a whole day just talking about cleaning books.  More specifically we spent a lot of time worrying about to clean things without actually damaging them at all.   This generally led onto discussion on where you could still get old fashioned products and whether certain brands of metal cleaner where on the British Museum safe list.  It also led onto the wonderful world of natural cleaning products.

While I was working for the Nt the early episodes of How Clean is your House were just airing and the UK was waking up to remembering that people have used all sorts of things to clean their houses in the past and some of those things are very useful today.

In fact, not only are some of the old fashioned and natural (yes, I am using the term in a loose sense) products useful, they are often a lot cheaper than branded products and contain significantly lower levels of chemicals.  Best of all, they are relatively easy to get hold of.

My favourite 2 natural cleaning products are vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.  You can buy both in Wilkinsons, in the cleaning aisle.

Next time you reach for expensive bathroom cleaner try buying a spray bottle of vinegar.  Spray all around your bathroom and wipe clean! Spray on the floor and wipe clean.  I recommend using a microfibre cloth.

You can get a whole range of these cloths, depending on your budget.  I find that the five for £1 from Tesco ones work fine.

Yes, your bathroom will smell like a chip shop but not for long!

In contrast, the branded anti bacterial cleaning I have to have in my bathroom (I run a food business from home and the local EHO says I have to use it by law) contains 0.07% benzoalkonium chloride.  It is a very low percentage but a quick look a the Wikipaedia pages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzalkonium_chloride)  really puts me off using it at all.  If we were in the middle of an nasty epidemic then I wouldn't mind but for a daily clean I would rather use the vinegar.

Luckily I only cater from home once a week.  Then out come all the approved cleaners and my home gets a really thorough drenching in mysterious mixtures I don't understand but most of them have warnings on the back.