I know, I know. Most average guys would shy away from slathering their faces in a mask made from avocado pulp, oat meal, olive oil and ground almonds, or admitting to using hand lotion that smells delicately of roses. The occasional metrosexual type might, but not the typical middle class man. However, there are plenty of home-made domestic cleaning London products that the average man can feel comfortable about using.
Many of these natural grooming products call for essential oils. These are mostly added for the scent. Choose an essential oil that you like. Good choices for men include the spicy oils (cinnamon and cloves – if you like Old Spice male grooming products, you’ll like these); the fresh, tangy citrus oils; and the more herbal and woody oils, such as pine, sage, cypress, bay and rosemary. Lavender is another oil that isn’t overpoweringly sweet, floral and feminine (honestly!). Many of these essential oils are used in commercially available aftershaves – or at least synthetic versions of them are.
Shaving soap
Just plain soap and water makes a good lather – it was all that many men had in the past. This recipe is less drying than plain soap and can easily be worked up to a good lather.
* 1 1/3 cup distilled water
* 250 g soap flakes (grate a bar of plain soap to get soap flakes)
* 20 drops essential oil of your choice – try a blend.
Put the grated soap in a wide screw-top glass jar. Put this jar in a saucepan of ordinary tap water and put the saucepan on the cooker and let the soap in the jar heat up and start melting. Meanwhile, warm the distilled water in another saucepan. Carefully pour the warm distilled water into the soap flakes and start stirring like heck. It will make a translucent, gloopy gel. Remove the jar from the heat and let it cool slightly. Stir in the essential oils. Screw down the lid and put the jar in a cupboard until use. When you need it, spoon out what you need and work it to a good lather with your hands and apply it with a natural bristle brush after rinsing your face.
Heavy-duty hand scrub
Get rid of that deeply ingrained dirt from the garden or the workshop with this tough soap. It’s also good for filthy knees obtained in a rugby match.
1 bar plain white soap, unscented (home made, if you like)
1 T olive oil
4 T coarse sand or ground pumice stone (to get ground pumice stone, grab a chunk of pumice, put it in a bag and bash it to powder with a hammer).
Essential oil (optional)
Melt the soap in a double boiler or in the microwave on Low. When it’s runny, stir in the olive oil and the sand until it’s all mixed in. If the mixture hardens before you’re ready for it, re-soften it by zapping it again in the microwave – or keep it over the heat in the double boiler. Add the essential oil last, if you’re using it. When the sand or pumice is added in, pour the runny soap into a mould to shape it – an old used margarine container or small yoghurt pot will do. Put it into the refrigerator to harden. When the soap is solid, press it out of the mould and wrap it in clingfilm until you need it.
Aftershave
Aftershave is necessary to kill any pimple-causing bacteria getting into the opened pores or little nicks once you’ve shaved. All you really need is the alcohol (we’ve used vodka in this recipe, but any strong spirit or surgical rubbing alcohol will do. Don’t use meths), but adding a bit of scent makes it reek less. Essential oils also help kill the germs.
* 2 cups vodka
* 4 bay leaves
* 20 drops essential oil – use a blend of woody and herbal oils.
Put the vodka in an airtight bottle or jar and put the bayleaves into the liquid. Close the lid, then put the bottle/jar in a dark cupboard for a week or so. At the end of the week, take out the bayleaves and put in the essential oil. Close the lid again and shake the bottle or jar hard. You can try using this straight away, but the longer the vodka and essential oils sit around together, the more mellow the scent.
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Modern houses have bathrooms where we soak, splash, scrub and generally groom ourselves. The days of ancient Rome where bathhouses were state-funded and kept in good order by hordes of slaves are long gone, so what goes on in the bathroom is entirely up to us. Usually the more items there are, the more time consuming is the regular domestic cleaning.
Most of the steam that fogs up the bathroom, clouds the mirrors and promotes the growth of mould comes from the shower. Showers that have individual cabinets are best, as this stops the steam getting everywhere else. Showers over the bathtub are chillier – all that cool air around you – and lets the steam get all over the bathroom. The steam will be confined to the shower area – and so will the mould. Regular window cleaning is essential in order to prevent dirt from the inside of the bathroom windows.
To clean off the mould from the shower area (or the whole bathroom if you can’t have a fully contained shower) you can use a commercial cleaner or use plain chlorine bleach diluted 50/50 with water. Put this mixture in a spray bottle, then spray and wipe as necessary. Be careful with your eyes and your clothes, as chlorine will bleach your clothes and leave them with funny little white spots – but you could probably tackle the job of getting rid of mould in the shower before you start your shower with no clothes on, which will eliminate any risk of damaging your clothes.
Grotty shower curtains should also be washed in a bleach solution, this time using 10% bleach and a good dollop of dishwashing liquid or any general house cleaning product. Leave the shower curtain in a bucket with this mixture and soak it for an hour. Rinse well, then hang the curtain out to dry – preferably outside in the sun and wind – and make sure that it’s hanging upside down so water doesn’t get trapped in the hems and turn nasty.
Still on the topic of shower curtains, who doesn’t loathe the feeling of wet, clammy shower curtains whipping around their legs and body? This usually happens if the window is open – the poor person’s extractor fan – and a breeze is blowing through. Avoid this by sewing weights to the bottom of the hem – fishing sinkers or metal washers work well. The only time these are a nuisance is if a very high wind gets into your bathroom while you’re in the shower, as the strong wind will whip the curtain and weights into you. Usually also more dust is gathered when the weather is windy which makes the weekly house cleaning session a bit longer.
Most people buy a shampoo they can’t stand at some time in their lives. Instead of throwing it out, use it as liquid soap. If you still can’t stand it as a liquid soap, shampoo makes a good bubble bath solution – all those foaming agents designed to fill your hair with lather makes great bubbles. Other uses for unwanted shampoo include using it to handwash delicates or even to wash the dishes. It also makes a good emergency clothes washing liquid if you run out of regular washing powder. Some people may decide to use it for carpet cleaning London.
Liquid soap is by far the easiest to clean up. However, bar soap is cheaper. The best compromise here is to chop up or grate bar soap, then turn it into a liquid by adding boiling water – experiment to find the right consistency. Scent (in the form of essential or aromatic oils) and colour (food colouring) can be added if desired. You will need to buy a liquid soap dispenser to start this process off or use a bottle from your recycling bins before the rubbish clearance company takes them.
Alternatively, save little slivers of bar soap from the shower, etc. and melt these down to make liquid soap.
Razors last better than you think they do. Don’t have a set “use by” date (e.g. a week) for razors but just evaluate by feel whether it’s still sharp and cutting. Razors last longer and keep their edge longer if they are dry, so make sure they drain. Those little plastic guard things on disposable razors shouldn’t be put back on after use, as they trap moisture around the blade. Simply put the razor somewhere out of child-reach where it can drain easily. Make sure you explain your domestic cleaner how to deal with it if she finds it.
Still on the topic of shaving, remember that a woman’s razor cuts just as well as a man’s one and usually contains more lubricants for a similar price. Men with dry skin can use women’s razors perfectly well – this writer’s husband found that a woman’s razor was the best sort for him. After use, never trow them away in the recycling bins.
And still on the topic of shaving, you can do without expensive shaving foams. All that these foams do is hold water on the skin to soften the hairs and make them easier to cut, and provide a bit of lubrication. Soap and water is more than adequate – men and women. To save more, you can also think about water waste and do something to prevent it.
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We need to have at least eight hours of sleep every night, on average. If we don’t get enough sleep, then it affects our immune systems, our energy levels, our metabolism, our performance – everything! As Shakespeare put it in Macbeth, sleep “knits up the ravelled sleeve of care…sore labour’s bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, cheif nourisher in life’s feast.”
What can you do to keep yourself from “murdering sleep” without recoursing to a sleeping draught (like Lady Macbeth used on the grooms she framed for the murder of the King in the play)?
First of all, be regular in your habits. Try and avoid chopping and changing your sleeping and waking patterns. The odd one-off every now and again for a special reason is OK, but always changing when you go to bed and when you get up is not good for you. They say that it is best if you keep your waking up time consistent (even in the weekends), even if you feel tired. If you need to catch up on sleep, do it by having an early night (I just wish that I could convince my other half about this…).
Be careful what you do before going to bed. Avoid watching television or making big decisions, as this can raise your adrenaline levels. Adrenaline is the “fight or flight” hormone, and it won’t let you sleep. Also avoid intense exercise before bed, although gentle stretches can help you wind down ready to sleep. Obviously, avoid stimulants such as coffee, caffeine-based soft drinks and diet pills containing caffeine before bed. If you are particularly sensitive to caffeine, also avoid tea and chocolate. Milk, however, is good, as it can stimulate the production of the hormone needed for deep sleep. Other good relaxing foods include bananas and cheese (hence the popularity of cheese and crackers as a late night snack). But don’t eat a large meal just before sleeping.
Other good sleeping habits involve what you use your bedroom for. If you work from home, do not set up your home office in your bedroom. Bedrooms should be for sleeping and for sex only – and maybe some relaxing leisure activities such as reading cheap novels, scribbling poetry and the like. Don’t keep a television in your bedroom – it will only stimulate you and entice you to stay up late.
Make sure that your bed is comfortable. You will have to be like Goldilocks: it can’t be too hot, too cold, too hard or too soft, but just right. However, you can get used to a slightly firmer mattress (or a slightly softer one, as long as it doesn’t strain your back). Don’t keep the same bedding year round – you will need to add and remove blankets depending on the season. Also pay attention to your pillows so that they actually support your back.
Don’t let your bedroom grow cluttered with clothes on the floor, a jumble of stuff on your dresser and a bedside table crammed with books, magazines and empty glasses. This is not restful for your eyes and merely looks chaotic and hectic – not the right mood for getting good sleep. You can ask your domestic cleaning London lady to do some tidying up apart from the cleaning and put the room in order.
Music can help soothe you to sleep, but its best if you keep your bedroom as quiet as possible. It should also be kept dark. If you live on a busy main street with streetlights and heavy trucks going by all night long, then use thick curtains to not only black out the light (and keep the room warmer) but also to muffle the sound. If noise is really bad, invest in earplugs. Moonlight shining in can be soothing when you are going off to sleep, but be aware of the phases of the moon – the full moon shining straight onto your eyes can disturb your sleep or wake you up, which is probably why old superstitions exist about not allowing moonlight to fall on the face of a sleeper.
Fresh air in the bedroom also helps quality of sleep, but don’t compromise warmth or safety.
Get a set bedtime routine and stick to it – it works.
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Did you know that in many top of the range cosmetics, most of the price is actually tied up in the packaging and in the advertising campaigns? And in many of those extremely overpriced cosmetics, you will pay extra for “natural herbal extracts” and other so-called wonder ingredients that sound like the things on your shopping list. How about trying your hand at making your own cosmetics? While the feel and look of home-made cosmetics (and, to a certain extent, the smell) isn’t like those of the bought stuff, you can be certain that you can avoid anything that gives you allergies and you will probably have fun doing it.
The easiest home made cosmetic of all is a face-mask. One that works a treat for dry skin and improves skin tone is… honey. Just plain honey spread over your face (avoid the eye area) and leave it for however long you want, then wash off with plain water. If the honey is not very runny, then soften it with milk or water to apply it. Honey is good for chapped lips – but it’s hard not to lick it off.
For skin that needs a bit of tightening, you can mix egg white with the honey and let it dry. Don’t leave this one for too long, as overdoing it can dry your skin. To prevent this happening, add a little olive oil or almond oil (or any other vegetable based oil of your choice – they all work well to prevent skin drying.
For oily skins, the classic face mask is porridge. Instead of throwing out that last little spoonful at the bottom of the saucepan after breakfast (or feeding it to the dog), keep it in the fridge and use it as a face mask or as a face scrub. Adding sugar (white or brown, as long as it’s grainy rather than powdery) can turn the porridge into an exfoliating scrub.
The very first moisturiser was cold cream, invented by Greek philosopher and doctor Galen. You will need a double-boiler for this. In the business part of the double boiler, melt about 30g beeswax. Add 100 ml olive oil and stir it in thoroughly. Add 30ml soft water – rosewater is best, but plain distilled water is OK – and stir it in drop by drop thoroughly. This bit takes time and patience to get the consistency right. When all the water is mixed in thoroughly, add in some essential oil of your choice.
Another good exfoliant scrub is a paste made of ground almonds. This can be mixed to the right consistency with milk, water or oil, although oil should be avoided by people with oily skins.
Other good mask ingredients include those listed below. Mix and match according to your needs and what you have available.
* Milk powder – contains mild exfoliant acids and is moisturising
* Avocado pulp – rich and moisturising (the skins, turned inside out, make a good scrub); rich in Vitamin E.
* Kiwifruit – contains an enzyme that eats dead protein. This is the real original chemical peel. Don’t leave it on too long or put it on your lips. To get rid of hardened, flaky skin on your feet, spread a paste of mashed kiwifruit over your feet last thing at night, put on socks (two pairs, possibly) and wash them off in the morning.
* Papaya – another fruit with a chemical exfoliant principle.
* Pineapple (fresh, not canned) – still another fruit that dissolves dead protein.
* Yoghurt – contains a mild acid for exfoliation, plus natural moisturisers.
* Cucumber – moisturising and cooling
* Egg yolk – rich in all sorts of goodies – proteins, moisturisers, Vitamin E…
Essential oils are lovely for home made face masks, scrubs, creams and domestic cleaning London products. However, take care with the type of essential oil, as some are too strong to be used directly on the skin (but tea-tree oil can be used directly on the skin for pimples and acne). Read all warnings on the packet carefully.
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“To market, to market, to buy a fat pig. Home again, home again, jiggety-jig,” goes the old nursery rhyme. Such a nice nostalgic phrase – going to market. Very picturesque and quaint, with overtones of a world that has vanished with the hustle and bustle of modern life. A phrase from a bygone era when life was simpler and people lived closer to the land.
Well, not quite. Farmers’ markets are thriving in the UK, as well as many other places around the world. Their popularity in the Western world is on the increase, particularly among those who are environmentally aware and like to know exactly where their food has come from. But in other parts of the world, markets never died out and continue to be the mainstream way of buying your fruit and vegetables (and more).
Farmers’ markets are not flea markets. Flea markets tend to be a lot more informal, and often you have no guarantee where the items for sale came from. In farmers’ markets, however, things are more regulated. In the UK, the organisation FARMA exists to help with tracing food from field to plate, and to provide guidelines on such things as the maximum distance a grower or seller can travel to sell in a farmer’s market. At farmers’ markets, you are sure to be buying locally grown produce, probably directly from the grower him/herself (or at least someone closely associated with the grower).
What are the advantages of farmers’ markets? First of all, you will be buying local produce. This ensures that your food will be fresh, in season and will not have been carted on a ship or truck for hundreds of miles before being sold (the food miles argument has some flaws, but they will not be discussed here). Buying local produce means that you are supporting the economy of your local community. By eating seasonal vegetables, you will be making sure that you get a lot of variety in your diet.
Shopping at farmers’ markets is a lot more fun than visiting your local supermarket. If you visit the same farmers’ market on a regular basis, you will begin to build up a relationship with your favourite sellers. Selecting, weighing and paying for your produce takes time, and you will be able to talk with the seller much more easily than you can with a bored checkout attendant – even the old standby of small talk, the weather, becomes relevant if you’re discussing it with someone who relies on the weather for their business. You can find out more about the produce you’re buying (you certainly won’t have the experience I once had at a supermarket, where the girl at the till held up one vegetable and said “Um… this is a zucchini, isn’t it?”). And you can even ask growing advice if you’re a home gardener London. Farmers’ markets also have real atmosphere and a buzz about them that is often lacking in the sterile supermarket environment.
Farmers’ markets are also popular with organic grower and growers of specialist vegetables that mainstream supermarkets won’t take on. You can come across some excellent finds, especially when it comes to herbs or out-of-the way vegetables. Small-scale producers of things such as free-range eggs and home-made cheeses can also make good sales in farmers’ markets – you can support the “little people” instead of the big corporates.
Farmers’ markets are also good for the sellers, as growers and producers are able to get a much fairer price for their produce. Supermarkets can use “bully boy” tactics to buy produce from growers at very low prices (sometimes even below the cost of production in some cases) and then sell the produce on to the general public at a huge mark-up (in Ireland, potatoes were being sold at around 200% profit). From the buyer’s point of view, you will be buying cheaper from a farmers’ market, but from the seller’s point of view, they’re getting more in the hand.
From an environmental point of view, farmers’ markets have some bonuses. Produce is less likely to be packaged in plastic, so less waste is generated. Some produce may be put into plastic bags so you can carry it easily. But you can always bring your own bags, and you won’t look odd or feel out of place doing this. As farmers’ markets are usually out-of-doors, electricity and fuel is not burnt on lights, heating, refrigerators, etc.
And fresh vegetables aren’t the only things that make farmers’ markets healthy for you. You will burn quite a few calories carrying your goodies around the market and back to your car (or straight to your home). In some developing countries, the problem of carrying heavy loads can be avoided because you can often encounter unemployed people offering to carry your bags (and they don’t steal them) for a small fee. This hasn’t quite caught on in the West – yet. But if farmers’ markets continue to grow in popularity the way they have, it might!
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Reduce, reuse and recycle are the big mantras for eliminating waste and helping to save the planet’s resources and stop the mountain of rubbish getting higher and higher. Here are more recycling (and reusing) ideas.
* Instead of throwing flat beer down the drain, use it as slug and snail bait. Bury a container (e.g. a jam jar, margarine container or old Marmite jar – another form of reusing) so that the top is level with the ground. Fill it with flat beer. The slugs and snails will be attracted to it and slither in to drown. Alternatively, flat beer is supposed to be good for the hair – all those B vitamins from the yeast and malt – so it can be used as a hair rinse.
* Old cotton reels can be used for doorstops. Alternatively, they’re great wooden blocks for kids. Larger ones are safe for babies – too big to swallow. A third use for old cotton reels is to nail two on the wall with enough space in between for a broom handle – the broom head will rest on the reels so you can store it easily.
* All sorts of things can be cut up to make guitar picks. Old credit or EFTPOS cards and ice cream containers are good old favourites for this.
* An old garden hose that has split can be used as a sprinkler system. Punch a few more holes in it so it can water all your garden at once.
* A Church of England vicar I know cuts up icecream containers for clerical collars (the traditional “dog collar”) instead of buying new ones if one breaks or gets lost in the wash. He also has been known to use a white plastic toothpaste tube, inserted with the inside (white) side showing. Don’t inundate your vicar with ice cream containers, though – ask first. That being said, ice cream containers are great for frozen food, so may be useful if your local church (or any other organization, for that matter) has a food bank.
* If you don’t already compost orange peel, dry it and use it as potpourri or as a moth repellent in your wardrobe. You can check the peels when doing your regular domestic cleaning London and remove the old ones.
* Old plastic bags can be stuck into Wellington boots if they’re wet inside to stop your socks getting wet. You can also use them as a waterproof lining inside hiking boots, but your feet will get sweaty.
* Large clear plastic containers make excellent bell cloches for protecting young plants in cold weather, so you can get lettuce in winter time or help your pumpkins/marrows get a head start on the growing season.
* Egg boxes (cardboard) are great for starting off seedlings. Plant seedlings into each compartment. When the plant is big enough, simply cut up the egg box and plant it directly. The cardboard will rot away as the plant grows. Larger cardboard cartons can be used in a similar way – just make sure that they aren’t plastic coated.
* The top of soft drink bottles makes an excellent funnel.
* Old shower curtains can be made into small tablecloths or for babies’ bibs. Alternatively, use it to make a rain cape or poncho.
* Those irritating plastic rings that seem to be attached to the bottom of nearly every bottle with a screw-off lid make good bubble wands if you pinch one part of the ring into a point and stick it into a drinking straw. The bigger the ring, the bigger the bubble.
* Old panty-hose can be used by fishing enthusiasts as an attractant. Fill the toe with cat food or some other nice, smelly bait and dangle it in the water for a while before putting your hook in. This also works for attracting eels.
* If a boy has worn holes in the knees of his trousers, cut the legs off and let him wear them as shorts. The same applies to adults’ clothing.
* Save old, holey jeans to make patches for other jeans. Denim is good and strong and can be used to patch most things.
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One thing is a sure sign of winter being here: a soaring power bill. Over winter, the lights go on more, we crank up the heaters and we cook more hot food. How do you stop the madness?
Even over summer, saving electricity is important. Not only does saving power save a few pennies, it also helps the environment, particularly if your power is generated by a coal, gas or oil-fired plant (and even if you live off the grid and rely on solar power, some days, you’ll need to save power so you’ve got enough). Here’s a few tips – big things and small things – that we can do to save electricity.
* If you’re boiling the kettle to make a cuppa, don’t fill the kettle more than you need (but make sure that you have the minimum amount in). You only need to boil the water you’re going to use – the energy taken to heat that extra water will just go to waste.
* Cook carefully. If you’re cooking a roast in the oven, try and cook as many other things in there as well to save switching on more elements and make the most of the energy you are using. The same goes for cooking on top of the stove – a steamer that fits above a saucepan allows you to boil one thing (e.g. pasta) down the bottom, while the steam rising into the top compartment will cook some of your vegetables.
* Don’t leave electronic and entertainment gadgets sitting on standby. They may not be using as much electricity when they are “asleep” but they do use some. Switch them off at the wall. Even items that use a lot of electricity to start up should be switched off overnight.
* Don’t stand staring into the fridge with the door open while you decide what you want to eat. Think first and then open it up – and close it quickly.
* Let food cool down before putting it into the refrigerator or the freezer. Otherwise, the cooling unit will have to work harder to pull the heat out of the item and get rid of it, which takes electricity.
* Use cold water to wash your laundry – this has the added bonus of stopping many stains from setting. Also when doing your regular domestic cleaning London, try to use as less hot water as possible.
* Lag the pipe of your hot water cylinder to insulate it – a good use for an old blanket.
* Don’t use an electric blanket on your bed. Use a hot water bottle or a wheat pack instead, or else put on an extra blanket of the ordinary kind, use flannelette sheets and cosy pyjamas.
* Pull the curtains when the sun goes down to trap the heat of the sun in the house (and close the windows, too). This is also good for your privacy.
* Limit the time you spend in the shower. Perhaps you could get away with shaving your legs every second day, or you could rinse your hair in cold water in the sink afterwards? Also limit the number of hot baths you have – a weekly treat, maybe, instead of a daily soak?
* Heat your body instead of heating the air in a room (unless you have infants, elderly folk or unwell people in your home). Do some exercise to get the blood warming and pumping through your system, pull on a warm jersey or (if you’re going to be sitting down at a desk or in front of the TV) put a hot water bottle on your midriff. If cold hands or feet are a problem thanks to circulation problems, have a bit of cayenne pepper (followed by a glass of milk to lessen the heat in your mouth) to get the blood flowing again to your extremities. It works!
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Once you have started using a deep freeze, you will not want to live without one. Having a deep freeze means that you will be able to store up edibles during times of plenty (whether this plenty means a bumper crop in the garden or some top-notch specials at the supermarket) for when times are tough. However, if you’ve got one, you have to treat it properly in order to get the best out of it.
First of all: some basic energy-saving tips. Don’t put hot food in the freezer, but allow it to cool down first so the freezing unit doesn’t have to work overtime to get things down to the right temperature. Also, a full freezer is more efficient – frozen meat and containers of soup don’t rush out the door when it opens, but air does. The new air will then have to be cooled.
You will also have to defrost the deep freeze regularly – about once a year is enough for most people with busy lives to lead. The main thing is to defrost the freezer before the ice builds up to a level that stops you shutting the door properly. A defrosting session as part of your domestic cleaning London is also a good chance to check through your frozen goods and make sure that nothing’s been sitting there too long.
How long is too long in the freezer? Leaving aside the palaeontologists who claim that mammoth meat frozen since the ice age is perfectly preserved and edible, if you don’t mind a little “freezer burn”, here are some rough guidelines:
Fruit and vegetables: 8 months (although they are still good after two years, from personal experience with a batch of frozen stewed plums). Freezing slows down enzyme reactions rather than stopping them, so blanching fruit and veg lightly or cooking them before they go into the freezer helps them stay good for longer. Berries are excellent to freeze and can be kept safely for up to a year.
Meat: up to 1 year, but less if the meat has been sliced or minced. For things you buy frozen (e.g. fish fingers), check the expiry date on the packet.
Eggs: Don’t freeze them at all – they can’t handle it.
Dairy products: up to 9 months, depending on what it is. If you have frozen a bottle of milk, wait until it thaws completely before drinking or using it, as the water part of it thaws out last.
Baked goods: three months for bread and the like, but biscuits can stay frozen for a year safely.
Some things don’t freeze well. Lettuces, bananas and all egg products shouldn’t be frozen, as they turn quite peculiar when they thaw out. It is also unwise to freeze stuffed poultry, as the stuffing can sometimes fail to freeze for some time and turn nasty in the process.
Don’t freeze anything that was in bad condition before it went in – it will still be bad when it comes out and you will have wasted valuable freezer space.
Make sure that you thaw out items you want to use properly before you start cooking them, especially meat. The exceptions here are berries or cut up pieces of fruit to be used in muffins, as they keep their shape for longer if they go into the mixture frozen; meat to be put through a mincer, which should be partially thawed, as it grinds more efficiently when half frozen; and frozen vegetables to be boiled, steamed or cooked in the microwave. Never put something back in the freezer once it’s thawed out.
If a power cut happens, your freezer will be good for a few days before things start thawing. Keep the door closed to keep the chill in for as long as possible. After about four days, things will begin to thaw. If the power is still out and your freezer was full of meat, this is the moment to get out your barbecue or light a fire, and to call all your neighbours around for a king-sized feast. It will cheer you all up during a crisis (which is what must be going on if the power has been out this long) so it won’t be a total waste of money.
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If you live in rented accommodation, you have probably noticed that landlords don’t always provide the most up-to-date decor. Ghastly wallpapers with loud 1970s prints (or 1940s) and ugly carpets, ugly paint… well, all the landlord has to provide is something structurally sound. And if you’re on a tight budget, you can put up with a lot for a lower price. However, if you want to tell the landlord where to stick his/her wallpaper (as a home loan ad I saw recently put it) but aren’t ready to take the plunge into home ownership yet, it’s good to know some things that will improve a room cheaply and in such a way that you can take it down when you leave and not get penalised for damaging the place.
Obviously, repainting and recarpeting are not options, unless the paint is really atrocious, as in peeling and flaking all over the place – let the landlord know and offer to the repaint job yourself. The landlord will probably want to say what colour of paint to use, but will probably be quite grateful for any offers. Chances are, he/she will choose something nice and neutral, anyway, as this sort of paint tends to be cheapest.
Things that everyone can do:
Rugs. These can cover up threadbare carpets, stained and nasty carpets and bare boards. Buy good second-hand ones or cheap new ones. For ease of professional carpet cleaning London, avoid fluffy shagpile except in small amounts.
Fabric. Fabric can be stuck over awful wallpaper with drawing pins or even staples (remember to take it down if you shift out). This is a time-honoured way of brightening up a dull or grotty looking wall –people in the Middle Ages used tapestries to cover grim looking stone walls in castles, although they couldn’t use drawing pins or staples in stone. Either pull the fabric tightish as a pseudo-wallpaper or else get creative and let it hang in billowing swags for an Arabian Nights tent look (then add a Persian style carpet to complete the theme). Fabric also has the advantage of being washable if it gets grimy (be careful with bright ethnic prints – these often run colour).
Curtains. Yes, the landlord has probably provided curtains of some description. If he/she hasn’t or if you hate the curtains that have been provided, you can take them down carefully and store them in a cupboard and put your own up. Can’t find or can’t afford curtains? Use sheets from the second-hand shops. These are ready-hemmed and you can attach them to curtain tracks or rings with safety pins placed discreetly. They will probably been too long (unless you hang them sideways and have one curtain for the whole window, but the “billowing onto the floor” look is quite dramatic. Remember, however, that thinner ones won’t trap much heat and can be see-through with a light behind them. You don’t want to give the neighbours a risqué shadow play every evening. Using a double layer of fabric can help with both of these – or experiment with thicker fabric (a second-hand duvet cover might work).
Mirrors. Ideal for adding extra light into dark areas. As Shirley Conran put it in Superwoman, mirrors are not just for checking makeup (or checking for spinach between your teeth). They reflect light. Place them strategically and you can make a dark, small room look a lot brighter. It makes a room look bigger, too, even if it isn’t. If you have a nice view out one window, put the mirror opposite that window so you get the view twice. According to C.S. Lewis, the reflected view will seem more magical and meaningful.
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All right. The worst has happened and now you’re without electricity (or gas) for a wee while. Your house is intact and liveable, and you had enough foresight to put aside a supply of non-perishable food for situations like this. Now you’re faced with another problem: how are you going to cook your food?
You could, of course, just eat things like baked beans, tinned fish and tinned peaches cold. You’ll still get all the nutrients you need out of it. However, if the electricity’s off and you’re doing things by candlelight after a disaster, having a hot meal is very comforting and good for morale. It also warms you up from the inside, which is a good way of keeping warm.
If you have a barbecue that runs off charcoal or its own separate gas bottle, you won’t have any problems. Most things can be cooked on a barbecue one way or another, even if you just stick a saucepan or kettle over the hot bit of the barbecue and let something boil or simmer away. Some barbecues are even able to bake and roast things, so if you have one of these, you will have absolutely no problems whatsoever – you will probably be able to cook for yourselves and all your neighbours, thus making yourselves very popular indeed.
No barbecue or even a little camping primus? You’re going to have to cook over a fire of some sort. As we learned in high school science, one of the key things that make humans humans rather than apes is that we can make fire. We’ll assume that you have matches and some old dry newspapers for this article.
Start with the fireplace. If your house has an old open fireplace or a pot belly stove, you have a good start. If you don’t, you’re going to have to make one. Outside will be best, if you can, to avoid setting your house on fire. Build a ring on a flat, non-flammable surface using bricks or rocks or ask a handyman London to do that for you. These bricks and rocks aren’t necessary to get a fire going, but they will be necessary for the actual cooking.
The fire should be lit as normal – tinder down the bottom, then kindling and then bigger stuff. As you are going to cook on this fire, chemical firestarters, petrol, etc. are not a good idea, as the fumes will get into whatever you’re cooking. Use wood, not coal. For cooking, you need plenty of embers rather than flames, so use big logs or charcoal.
Now you have to look at what you’ve got. If you have tinned foil, some items can be wrapped up in the tinfoil and baked on the ashes near the hot coals. Fish, potatoes and apples are good possibilities here, as are bananas, although the bananas only take a few minutes.
The biggest mistake anyone can make when cooking over an open fire is to put your frying pan or saucepan directly onto the hot embers. If you do this, you will burn your dinner very quickly. Your pan or pot should be above the embers, not on them (exception: kettles containing just water – but make sure they don’t boil dry). You can put things on the bricks and stones surrounding the fire, which will expose them to the heat but will not burn them. Remember to keep stirring, though, to make sure it cooks evenly. If you can find a metal grid or grille of some sort, this can be rested on top of the bricks across the fire for an instant barbecue grille. Rest saucepans and frying pans on top of this. Don’t touch the grille or grid – metal heats up quickly. A sheet of corrugated iron can be used but it isn’t quite as good.
If you can get a number of long poles, you can make a spit. This is not for spit roasting whole animals or fish. What you do is make a bucket-style handle on all your saucepans with some wire if they don’t have one already (round the sides of the pan in a big circle, then a loop over the top). If you have a large tin can, punch holes in the sides near the top and make it into a sort of bucket. The spit goes through the wire “handle” and the pot dangles over the fire. Getting it off again is a two-person job. This works for boiling and stewing things.
You can cook directly over the embers without anything fancier than a toasting fork or a sharp stick. Ever toasted marshmallows over a bonfire? Then you know what do to. You can cook kebabs, sausages, toast and melted cheese like this. You can also bake the Australian classic known as damper, which is dough – either bread dough or scone dough – wrapped in a long coil around a stick and held over the embers until it puffs up and turns golden brown.
If you can boil it, grill it, fry it or bake it in tinfoil, you can cook it. Stews are best, as they make best use of the nutrients and are more filling. You can also add more to a stew and still have it tasting great, especially with the addition of a little curry powder.
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