I know it is always a headache giving your dog a bath. The reason I know is that I used to have a large Labrador cross Husky who was very energetic and very afraid of being anywhere he may be cleaned. Seriously, he used to bolt away when my Dad got out the hose to clean the car and he would not go anywhere near our bathroom for fear of being washed again! Obviously this was after his first bathing experience! If you have a dog that behaves like this, it’s advisable to trick your dog with bribes of treats and attention to get them into the bathroom and then to shut the door so they cannot escape without being let out! You will need several people to hold the dog in place and you will need to be wearing clothes you are not bothered about being soaked! Hold the dog in the bath, put the shower on and massage in some specialist doggy shampoo. Then rinse the dog, making sure to wash all the bubbles away. You will need to keep the dog in the bathroom for a while after the washing because if you let him out and he runs into another room in the house he will shake his fur, splattering everywhere with water. We learnt our lesson after the first time.

I was speaking to my Granddad yesterday who said he doesn’t believe in dry cleaning, he thinks it’s just a myth where people spray perfume on your clothes, wipe any stains off with a damp cloth, fold the clothes up nicely, put them in plastic bags, charge you the earth and then just hand them back to you. I was watching Men Behaving Badly the other day and it seems that Tony (Neil Morrissey’s character) thinks the same thing. These instances made me wonder how it is done, because actually I had no idea, for all I know the fairies could come and clean them with fairy dust! I’m just glad when my red coat comes back bright again! Apparently they use an organic solvent which is usually tetrachloroethylene to clean the clothes. They go into a drum which is similar to a washer/dryer which has a chamber that contains a straight, perforated drum that turns within an outer shell. The shell holds the solvent and the rotating drum holds the garment load. They chamber is filled with some of the dry cleaning fluid and this has an effect on the clothing at 30 degrees. During the wash cycle, the dry cleaning fluid is passed through a filtration chamber and then fed back into the cage. Complicated eh?! It just proves, it’s not a myth.

I went to visit my friend this weekend as it was her 28th birthday. And because it was her birthday there were lots of presents, mostly flowers, plants and chocolates! She was getting ready to be taken out for her tea by her lovely boyfriend and had a new dress on that had cost the earth. It would’ve been unlike us not to crack open the toblerone on her birthday as it is tradition, and especially with it being a fruit and nut toblerone! Yes, it was good, however once we had eaten a couple of pieces she stood up and realised that she had bits of chocolate scattered over her new black dress. We looked online for cleaning tips in a panic and found various products suggested, however in the meantime I got a damp cloth and sponged the chocolate off her dress to see if it would work. It did, by the time we had decided on an antidote to the situation from the hundreds of suggestions online the dress had dried and the chocolate had gone leaving the dress perfect again! It just goes to show if you act quickly, there’s not too much chocolate and you use the magic substance called water anything is possible!

So, your child comes home with various marks, dirt and stains on their school uniform, and because you’ve already bought several new shirts this year, you are reluctant to sacrifice another one to the bin. Even though the big supermarkets are doing very reasonable prices for school uniforms it is ridiculous that you should immediately replace rather than repair! What happened to looking after what you’ve got? There was a time long ago when people darned socks, patched jeans and made patchwork blankets, now we’re in a society that creates mounds of landfill because we’re too lazy to sort things out and would rather waste our money and pollute the planet. Well no more. To remove ink and crayon stains you should dab the stain with methylated spirits on an absorbent white cloth, take chewing gum off by freezing it with a bag of ice cubes and scraping off, and remove glue using nail varnish remover! Methylated spirits is also good for removing grass stains and if you’ve got a solvent based paint stain or Plasticine stain try dabbing it with white spirit. Now you’ve got a new shopping list for useful stain removers to keep under the sink in case of emergencies such as when your child runs at you with a loaded paintbrush!

I always find that whenever I do a wash, a sock always gets lost! It’s ridiculous that you put them into the machine and it seems to eat them! There must be a place in the world where all the stolen socks get taken to. Perhaps the washing machines are ganging up on us and making their own sock army! Perhaps not. And then there’s the annoyance of having to hand wash certain items such as delicate bra’s and various other items of underwear. I hate hand washing and therefore I was thrilled to discover special mesh bags that you can put your delicates in and then you can wash them in the washing machine! It’s brilliant and saves so much time, you just have to make sure you put them in on a delicate wash and that you don’t mix them with anything that’s likely to lose its colour!

Have you noticed that your brick driveway is looking a bit tatty recently? Are there weeds growing through the gaps, mud stuck to half of the bricks and does it look just that little bit depressed? Here’s the best way to clean that driveway so it would be suitable for a Rolls Royce! It doesn’t matter if you’re just going to park your Escort on it, get it clean! To start off with you’ll need a power hose. Beware, a good power hose will blast off dirt but it will mean that it gets everywhere and you’ll need a less pressurised hose to clean the fence, house and anything else that gets in the way of your drive! Instructions are this; Wear clothes you don’t mind getting messy, blast off the moss with the high pressure hose until it is all gone from the gaps between the bricks, put weed killer onto the bricks, concentrating on the gaps between, put sand on the bricks and brush it into the gaps with a bristle brush so it covers the gaps and finally put brick acid on the whole drive to bring the colour out in the bricks. Voila, ‘ee is clean.

Have you heard the myth that when you spill red wine on your carpet, tablecloth or clothes, you should pour white wine over it? Or how about the one that says you should pour salt over it and then hoover it up? And there’s always the one that says you should pour white wine over it, then add salt and then scrub it!? This happened at a recent party, no, it was not me who spilled it! And after my friend tripped over her heels and spilt her drink all over the cream rug, we discovered that these myths do not work! The only thing we found effective was fairy liquid and hot water and a good dose of elbow grease. For those of you as gullible as me, elbow grease means scrubbing something hard and is not something you should go to the shop and ask for! If you spill red wine on your clothes the best idea is to put it in the washing machine straight away with some stain remover. Or you could always wear dark colours when you are drinking red wine and drink clear drinks when you are near anything light colours that will stain!

When you clean your house there are undoubtedly areas that you miss, simply because you don’t think to clean them. These are usually areas that collect dust and require a simple wipe over every now and then to lift the whole room. To remind you, these areas are usually the tops of the cupboards and wardrobes, skirting boards, the seams on doors, blinds and the insides of cupboards. You can get plenty of different dusters, however I would recommend a static duster that attracts the dust and does not simply move it around like most cloth dusters. For delicate areas like on shelves, you can use a microfiber or static duster that is soft with long bristles and lets you dust around things. These are the cleaner versions of a feather duster! If you can, use polish on the bits you clean as this will help repel dust and stop it from sticking. Try to run a duster across the top of your shelves, in between your blinds and over your shelves once every two weeks at least, and when you do a big clean, take everything out of your cupboards, clean the inside and put the items back. Also, get a cloth and dampen in some soapy water and run it along the skirting boards and the seams of your doors. It’s those finishing touches that make all the difference!

We all have those fantastic items in our wardrobe that add that little bit of glamour and luxury to any occasion. Unless you are willing and able to pay for expensive and very high quality garments, these items are usually hand wash items. I don’t know about you, but I am a big fan of my washing machine, partly because it is a washer/dryer. It is fabulous. It washes, spins and dries my clothes in good time, leaving me free to spend my time on the more important things in life! But there comes a time when you have worn all of your ‘hand wash’ items and you need to wash them. Here are a few tips. Get a good quality hand wash liquid which is available from any supermarket. You need to make sure that you wash them in sets according to colour as the hand wash items often run, and you do not want your white silk shirt being contaminated by your red one! If you have a bath, make sure it is clean and then you can do the bulk dark wash in your bact. Fill the tub, add the liquid and leave your dark clothes to soak for at least ten minutes. Empty the tub, give the clothes a gentle rub and squeeze and rinse them. If it is sunny then hang them on hangers carefully and let them drip dry outside, if not, hang them on your shower rail and allow the drips to go into the bath.. If you shake and re-shape them whilst they are hanging you will get the desired result and perhaps you will be able to avoid the ironing part that comes next!