In which a Domestic Daemon discovers a miracle and immediately becomes insufferable

Who would have thought?

I am not a neat freak. Far from it. But even I was beginning to lose patience with the state of our kitchen.

It was reasonably tidy. The floor was reasonably clean. But the wall and ceiling around the cooker looked as though we’d been conducting experimental warfare with cooking fat.

I could already see every spare penny we might have over the coming year disappearing into redecorating the kitchen.

To make matters worse, our kitchen cupboards have white, matt-painted doors. A charming choice, no doubt, provided one never actually uses the kitchen.

Anything that splashes, drips or spills leaves a mark. And when does anything not splash, drip or spill in a kitchen?

Now, as many of you know, I am no stranger to cleaning products.

Indeed, I have probably purchased every detergent, spray, cream, powder and allegedly miraculous household preparation advertised on television since I was old enough to wield a dishcloth.

Whenever a new product appears, promising to remove twenty years of accumulated grime with a single effortless wipe, I buy it.

I try it.

I am disappointed.

I put it under the sink with the others.

At this point, I had tried practically everything on those wretched cupboard doors, short of a blowtorch. I had scrubbed, rubbed, polished and applied enough elbow grease to lubricate a small industrial estate.

The doors looked cleaner, certainly.

But pristine?

Not even close.

Then, the other afternoon, while faithfully observing my usual television routine, I watched a pair of cleaning ladies tackle something particularly revolting in somebody else’s house.

Their secret weapon?

Ordinary laundry detergent dissolved in hot water.

Laundry detergent!

The stuff one puts in the washing machine!

I regarded this revelation with considerable scepticism. After all, I had spent a small fortune on products specifically designed to clean kitchens. Surely a humble scoop of washing powder couldn’t succeed where an entire shelf of expensive chemical warfare had failed?

Still, nothing ventured.

I boiled some water, dissolved a little laundry detergent in it, donned my rubber gloves and approached the nearest cupboard door.

One wipe.

That was all it took.

One. Single. Wipe.

The dirt simply came off.

No scrubbing. No rubbing. No swearing at the cupboard.

I was gobsmacked.

Naturally, I summoned the Long-Suffering Husband to witness this extraordinary event.

“LOOK AT THIS!”

He looked.

I wiped another patch.

“LOOK!”

He looked again.

I was so delighted that when he offered to help, I refused.

Absolutely not.

These were my cupboard doors, and I was going to clean every last one of them myself.

Having restored the doors to something approaching their original splendour, I began eyeing the wall behind the cooker.

Surely not.

And the ceiling?

Impossible.

But curiosity got the better of me.

I tried the wall.

The grease came off.

I tried the ceiling.

That came clean too.

By this point, I was practically hysterical with domestic triumph.

Years of accumulated kitchen grime, defeated by something that had been sitting in the laundry cupboard all along.

I felt like Archimedes discovering displacement, although considerably better dressed and with no immediate plans to run naked through the streets shouting Eureka!

And now?

Now I have a beautiful, clean kitchen.

And nobody is allowed to use it.

I guard it with the devotion of a Rottweiler protecting a particularly juicy bone.

There will be no frying, roasting, boiling, simmering or other reckless culinary activity capable of disturbing its newly acquired perfection.

The kitchen is no longer a place in which food is prepared.

It is a monument to my achievement.

Of course, this arrangement may become difficult when I get hungry.

But that is a problem for the Long-Suffering Husband.

He can put on his pinny and make me something to eat.

Preferably without making a mess.

And if he does?

Well, at least I know what to clean it with.