The Silly-Savvy Salopian in Suffolk: read, believe and write …

Courtesy of my good friend, Waterstones, I just finished reading Mrs Hinch’s book of cleaning tips, ‘Hinch Yourself Happy’!

Not being the tidiest of people (currently surrounded by mountains of dusty books), the last thing I expected was to become a convert. Why then, yesterday, did I find myself googling ‘Deflora’ to find out how to recognise it, and where to purchase it? And how come that, within seconds, I had been teleported to Tesco’s cleaning-product aisle?

Minutes later, I returned to my Dacia, to deposit a bagful of cleaning products in its thirsty boot. Having been spoilt for choice with the Deflora, I had found myself buying one of each. The 120ml, 250ml and 500ml bottles all came in different scents so, of course, I had to buy one (or perhaps two) of each. And somehow, a pair of pink rubber gloves for the kitchen, and yellow ones for the bathroom, also ended up in my shopping basket.

Keen to get stuck in, I started on the washing-up, progressing to emptying the bin, and cleaning the work surfaces. And, because I know that Mrs Hinch will ask, I used ‘Flash All-Purpose Spray’ for the latter task. At this point, I had my usual (not very usual, as I don’t clean all that often, or all that thoroughly) issue with an area of thick-sticky-impossible-to-shift residue at the back of the work surface and directly beneath our Suprema boiler. It’s been there since before the day we moved in and, after an initial cleaning frenzy, in an effort to rid the house of all traces of previous occupancy, I gave up on shifting the stuff (no-one would know – against the mottled-brown work surface, it was invisible); instead, plonking my bottles of cooking oil and pots of utensils on top of it. But, yesterday, already half-way through reading Mrs Hinch’s book, I felt her guiding hand on my shoulder, and resolved to attack the not-to-be-touched area of worktop with renewed vigour.

I tried the Flash spray, helped along with a non-scratch scourer from Tesco. It didn’t work. I’d long suspected that the residue might actually be a glue spillage. But, whether it be Superglu (Bovis kitchen fitters are notorious for leaving their mark!), or Sainsbury’s Home Glue Stick (the previous occupants, by all accounts, had lots of sprogs running amok), I wasn’t going to be beaten.

Looking around for a suitable weapon, I grabbed a slotted frying-pan turner (Poundland), and launched a second attack. The edge of the turner, and my own bionic power worked beautifully (never thought I would think anything involving housework beautiful), and brown-waxy-gluey scrapings quickly evolved into worktop-mountain ranges.

It was unfortunate that Mrs Hinch hadn’t lent me her Shelley Shark to finish the job off properly, but I made-do by shifting the mountains with my scourer, and giving the whole surface a second going-over with the Flash spray.

Finally, I ran my finger-tips all over my now smoother-than-smooth work-surface.

Job done!

Thanks to Mrs Hinch, I had succeeded in hinching myself happy.

One job completed, but still another to go. And this was to be the exciting part – my opportunity to try out the first of my new collection of Zoflora – a 120ml bottle of the ‘Hello Spring’ fragrance.

Full of the joys of spring, I vacuum cleaned the vinyl floor with my better-than-Henry-Hoover from Tesco; and, full of anticipation, popped half-a-capful of Zoflora into my mop bucket (probably also from Tesco!), filled it up with hot water and got cracking.

To be fair, then I was a little disappointed with the fragrance. I expected the aroma to fill the air with pleasantries, but the effect was only mild. Not to be put off, I decided that this could be blamed on the proximity of my kitchen to its neighbouring cloakroom toilet. Now, if Mrs Hinch hadn’t left me at that moment, I might have moved onto cleaning the aforesaid toilet, but she did leave me – so that was the end of that idea!

I would like to end this happy tale, with the breaking news that, today, I did finally get around to getting stuck into the yellow-and-brown grime inside the toilet bowl, but I would be lying – so I won’t.

I would, however, like to state the reason behind my slip in standards (return to my usual non-standards), and the reason is this:

No sooner had I finished the mopping, than Sprog 3 bounded into the kitchen in bare feet and, fearful of the effect of Zoflora on young skin, I screamed at her to get out. Barely was she out of the door, before the great big feet of my hubby, complete with muddy-garden shoes stomped into the kitchen. I decided against screaming at hubby (he’s a lot bigger than me!), but then he deposited a whole load of dirty crocks onto my beautifully clean work surface, proudly announcing that they were just the start of more-to-come from the rubbish-tip bedrooms of Sprogs 2 and 3.

I screamed at him!

Undaunted (lie), I put my best scrubbers onwards and, with gusto, attacked the new round of dirty crocks. You will very likely be admiring my resilience but, in truth, I was trying to speed up events –  so that I could move on to trying out one of Mrs Hinch’s magic tricks. I only needed to soak my dirty dishcloths in Zoflora overnight, to be guaranteed the reward of a divine smell the next morning.

So, I did the cloths, circumnavigated my way around the cloakroom and sought out my settee to settle in for a viewing of Britain’s Got Talent.

And on entering the kitchen this morning?

There was no divine smell of Zoflora, but there was still a nasty odour emanating from the cloakroom.

Still, one can’t have it all, and I was, for a little while yesterday, very happy indeed. So thank you, Mrs Hinch!

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, May 2019

Image by Julio Cesar Velasquez from Pixabay

P.S. Whilst writing this post, I collected my Zoflora collection from the kitchen, to get the names of the scents correct for my Hinch review. And, I have to say, that the smell of all of those bottles on my writing desk, next to my laptop, is total heaven! Hence, here is my very own Jay Cool tip:

1. Buy Zoflora (It’s cheaper at B&M than at Tesco! (£1 for 120ml instead of £1.25!) Yes, I did buy a load more bottles of the stuff today – I’m not one to miss out on a few bargains and, besides, the fragrances were different!).
2. Don’t do any cleaning (the hubby and sprogs will only undo your hard work)!
3. Instead, place your entire collection of Zoflora bottles, next to you whilst you blog.
4. Proceed to ‘Write Yourself Happy with Jay Cool’.

Copyright of postscript and photograph also owned by Jay Cool, May 2019

P.P.S. The teleportation bit has nothing to do with the fact that, last Friday, I was sweet-talked by Sprog 3, into watching ‘Avengers: End Game’ at Cineworld! Okay, so I didn’t need much persuading, and it was pretty good. Shame that the old geezer, Iron Man, kicked the bucket (I’d taken quite a shine to him) and left his daughter and wife all on their lonesome-ownsome.

Oops, is that a spoiler?

N.B. Tragically, I am not being paid any commission from Cineworld, Marvel, Tesco, Poundland or B & M!

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