Poor Willow has had a terrible weekend.  She started being sick at the end of last week, and I really feared she might not recover.  She’s getting quite old now and probably doesn’t fight infections as well as she used to.  Over the weekend she had a two day spell at the vets for intravenous fluids and anti-biotics.  We were very glad to have her returned to us yesterday, looking much, much better.  Well enough in fact  for me to feel happy to share with you what the conscientious eco-cleaner does when faced with large amounts of yellow bile all over the carpets.

• Mop up the excess and blot with all those rags you made out of unrecyclable clothes.  Most of our clothes fall into this category because we wear them until the stitches are falling out.  This particular operation required two XXL shirts belonging to The Man from Salford and a virtually unrecognizable dress once belonging to a smaller Goldilocks.    
• Spray the affected area with a 50/50 mix of distilled white vinegar and water.  This is primarily to disinfect the area, although it will also make the smell a little less offensive.
• In a mixing bowl, whisk equal amounts of water and an eco-washing-up liquid of your choice into a foam. (30 mls of each should make a reasonable amount.)  I cheated and used an electric whisk, I guess if you’re being truly sustainable you’d use a hand whisk and elbow grease.  Spread thickly (about 1cm) over affected areas and leave to dry out for a couple of hours, as the foam dries up it lifts dirt out of the carpet.  Then you can blot the area again or as I do vacuum over it.  (I’m not sure the manufacturer would approve of this.)  
• To deodorise your carpet, wait till it has thoroughly dried out and scatter with generous handfuls of bicarbonate-of-soda.  Leave as long as you possibly can, over night is ideal, but even a few hours will be beneficial.  Use a dustpan and brush to sweep most of it up and then vacuum.    

Wishing health to you all and your dogs, happy eco-cleaning!

Vampire Slaying the Nice Way

What did occur to me while watching, is that vampire slaying, traditionally at least, relies upon using  good old fashioned materials that are naturally anti-bacterial – wood, silver, garlic and holy water (not sure if our hole in the ground meets this last requirement!)  Proper S.L.P cleaning in fact.  I was delighted then to discover for sale in our local Morrisons (sorry, yes I do go to supermarkets) some cleaning cloths from ‘No More Chemicals’ which purport to clean and sanitize with the addition of nothing more than warm water.  (Their website isn’t up and running yet, I’ll put in a link when it is.)  The antibacterial action comes from silver micro-particles embedded in the cloth, which trap and disable bacteria.    There are three cloths in the range, one for bathrooms, one for kitchens and one for glass.

I bought the bathroom cloth first as I thought this would be the toughest of the three challenges, we are a filthy lot!  The little blue cloth didn’t look terribly convincing but it really did clean. It even managed oily scum marks which I thought would require something more abrasive and most importantly for people like me, who don’t get a kick from cleaning, it did it without fuss.  The kitchen cloth made short work of cleaning also.  I just had to wet it in hot water, wring it a little and it was ready. It is great for high frequency contact areas like cupboard and fridge handles as well as work surfaces, the beauty is in the simplicity and ease of use. 

Now I have to admit, I don’t do windows much, I tend to consider it cosmetic housekeeping which is quickly undone by small people and dogs pushing their noses up against them.  My windows would have to get a whole lot dirtier, opaque for example, before I’d consider them a threat to my health or well-being.  Having got used to the no-fuss of the other cloths, I was a little put out that the window cloth required me to spray water on my windows first.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I keep a spray-mister for my indoor plants I would have probably sulked and not done the product test at all.  ‘Just do a couple of windows,’ I told myself.  Again I was surprised and impressed, it didn’t seem to involve a great deal of elbow grease, and I had nice, shiny smear-free windows.  I got so excited I even did a mirror or two – my complexion improved instantly!          

You can wash these cloths up to a hundred times before they become ineffective, so even if you worked on the assumption you would wash them twice a week, you’ ve nearly got a year’s use out of them.  I bought mine on special offer so they were only a £1.oo, but they not going to break the bank at full cost (£2.49) - they work out a million times cheaper than buying chemicals ( and the cloths you still need on top anyway) and they don’t involve lots of nasty plastic bottles.  Give them a try I say, you’ve very little to lose and if you don’t like them you can always keep them handy for suffocating passing vampires with. (Always useful.)

The vampire-slayers in Demons actually smite ( I believe this is the correct technical term) their half-life victims with scary looking guns.  ‘What are they firing out of those?’ I ask Goldilocks.  ’Oh, special stuff,’ she sagely informs me.  I hope it’s not bleach!