If you’re at all interested in natural cleaning methods and sustainable living in general, you probably know lots of the usual uses of vinegar. You know – mixing it with salt to clean copper and brass, using vinegar to remove limescale from taps and kettles, unblocking drains and adding a bit of flavour to your fish and chips. But vinegar has some more unusual uses. Some of these you might never need to use, but you never know.

* Vinegar can work as a final rinse for animal’s coats after washing prior to shows. It is supposed to put a high gloss on the coat. Use a dilute solution (1 cup of vinegar to 1 litre of water). This is supposed to work with all mammals, although you’d have to use a massive amount to rinse down a show horse (especially one of the massive Shires).

* Urine in a mattress can be deodorised and have the germs removed by sponging the mattress with a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water. After this, either sprinkle on some baking soda to neutralise everything, followed by vacuuming off the residue, or else put the mattress in the sunshine to dry out properly. To prevent having to do this too often if you have a family member with a bedwetting problem, remember to use a rubber sheet topped with a thick towel underneath the bottom sheet.

* Put a small saucepan of neat vinegar on to simmer as a way of deterring flies from the kitchen. Apparently, flies hate the smell of vinegar fumes. Malt vinegar works the best, but it has the unfortunate side effect of also deterring certain members of my family who hate the smell of malt vinegar.

* You won’t need to use this one unless you go on holiday to the forest areas of Canada or the USA, but a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water removes the pong from skunk spray. Follow by a rinse in plain water. This is supposed to work for clothing and also for incautious dogs.

* You can make your own wood stain by mixing coloured water-based ink (try your local art store) with full-strength white vinegar. Make a careful note of the proportions of colour you use when you mix it up in case you want to make another batch (e.g. 2 T red, 1 T yellow, 1 T black in 2 litres of white vinegar).

* Cats hate vinegar, so splash it around where you don’t want them to go, such as children’s sandpits and your newly planted vegetable garden.

* Vinegar can be used to replace rinse aid in your dishwasher. Brilliant for putting a sparkle on your china, cutlery and glassware.

* Vinegar is an absolute must for making stock from beef, chicken or bacon bones (or any bones, for that matter), as the vinegar helps break the calcium in the bones down so it gets incorporated into the stock – and can get into your bones.

The most peculiar uses for vinegar this writer has ever come across relate to family planning. Absolutely no guarantees here, but one piece of folk wisdom suggests that a dilute vinegar douche before intercourse improves your chances of conceiving a girl. Of course, a woman trying this method also has to know she’s ovulating and capable of conceiving at all.

Baking soda was recommended for increasing the chance of a boy, and probably also the chance of a yeast infection as this would disrupt the naturally acidic balance of bacteria in the vagina. However, when you consider that the ancient Romans used a sponge soaked in neat vinegar as a contraceptive (with, supposedly, some success), whether this sex-selection method using vinegar actually works.