Sweet smelling kitchen

Boil a few slices of lemon in a saucepan of water to hide the smell of burnt cooking (and then get a takeway...)

Sliding drawers

Use solid beeswax to fix stiff furniture drawers. Apply a thin coat of beeswax to the runners and reapply as needed. Beeswax can also be used along the side of sash windows to help them open and close smoothly if they are getting stuck.

Oh for lovely soft hands

All that scrubbing, polishing and shining means that housework hands take a bit of a bashing . I've tried and tested tons of hand-creams and top of my list is Weleda's Seabuckthorne Hand Cream £4.95 (http://www.weleda.co.uk/). It's smells lovely and is great at the end of a hard days work in the house or garden.

Little fluffy towels

Towels have a habit of discolouring and becoming hard with use and this is particularly so if, like here in Bristol, you live in a hard water area.

Borax is great for freshening up tired towels and keeping them nice and fluffy. For a one-off treatment, add the towels to a bucket containing warm water and a couple of scoops of Borax and soak for 2 hours. This treatment will also help to get rid of stains and musty smells.

To keep towels in tip top condition swap half your washing powder with Borax and wash as usual, using a warm (not hot) wash. As with nappies, avoid using fabric conditioner as they coat the towels with silicone and reduce their absorbency.

Zita, patron saint of housework

I've just discovered Saint Sitha the patron saint of housework.

Sitha was born in Italy and worked for 48 years as a maid for a wealthy Italian family. Sitha is also the patron saint for people who have lost their keys :-)

Oops! There goes my red wine.....

Natural Stain Remover by Angela Martin is a slip of a book but really useful to have to hand if you're accident prone or have children.

In the first section the author lists 12 products that form the basis of most of the tips/recipes contained further in the book. There is also a brief section containing cleaning advice for each room, such as how to make furniture polish using olive oil, white vinegar and essential oil.

The most useful part of the book, though, is the chapter titled 'A - Z of Stain Removing and Cleaning', which has tips on lifting stains for pretty much anything you can think of.