Wednesday 13 March 2013

Domestic diablerie

The first two lemons on the tree are slowly turning yellow so I've been dreaming of all the ways I could employ their wonderful juiciness.  For my prized first lemons it will most likely involve consumption of a culinary kind but I thought I'd share with you another use for when (I'm still dreaming) my tree is laden with fruit and the happy yellow of another lemon drives me to delirium.  By this stage I imagine all I'll be wanting to do is shove lemons down the toilet in order to banish them from my sight so they may as well prove practical on the way:

I've found lemons are a boon in the bathroom and when combined with bicarb results in a kind of arcane alchemy with fantastic fizzing and foaming.  The alternative is vinegar but I find that lemons give an extra clean, bright scent to the bathroom.  To clean the toilet simply cut a lemon in half and rub it over the inside of the bowl, squeezing it to release the juice.  Give it a good wringing at the end to get the rest of the juice out and if the lemon isn't particularly juicy, use both halves.  Next sprinkle a good dose of bicarb around the bowl.  This is when the fizzing and foaming will commence.  If you find your foaming insufficient, try squeezing a bit more lemon around, then tilt your head back and cackle like a witch as your domestic diablerie comes to fruition.  Then sadly it's time to return to the reality that the bowl you are staring into is that of a toilet instead of a cauldron.  Clean the toilet with the brush as usual and sigh.   With any luck your partner will have heard you and will gladly volunteer to do it for you next time lest your departure from reality becomes rather prolonged.  There you are: simple, effective and you know exactly what the ingredients were and you don't end up with horrible warty looking blisters all over your hands as your contact dermatitis sets in from who-knows-what was in that bottle of cleaning solution, making you actually look like a gnarled-handed witch or wizard.

Lemon juice is also good for chasing away the calcium build up around taps.  Rub the inside of the lemon half on the build up and walk away for 5 mins.  Upon your return (or sooner if you were enjoying a lovely long tea infused interlude) it will have magically disappeared.  After dispensing far too much elbow grease on this issue I was so relieved when I found out about this little trick.  Now my elbows can keep their oil.

Feel free to impart to me any of your lemony lore or divulge developments in domestic diablerie!


2 comments:

  1. LOL, your description of loo cleaning is so enticing, that I am going to grab a lemon in the morning and do mine!! I don't think my lemons will be too juicy; they are starved of water, and the little water we do have is so precious that I can't water the trees!! :) Lisa

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Lisa. Still yet to do mine. I think writing the blog post became my excuse to get out of it. :)

      Hope you get some rain soon!

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