Summer holidays at my grandparents’ house are fixed in my memory: my twin sister and I sharing a double bed, with neither of us allowed to cross the invisible center line. We were undoubtedly a handful, but those getaways were pure magic.

My grandma wasn’t a master in the kitchen — you only needed to see her thick pastry crusts to know why — but what she lacked in cooking skills, she made up for in household wisdom. Decades later, her no-nonsense cleaning tips are still the ones I rely on today.

What stands out in my memory is that she didn’t have a cupboard overflowing with cleaning potions. She relied on a few essentials to keep her house clean from top to bottom. I think she’d be horrified if she could see my cleaning stash of products to remove stains, blitz mold and keep my windows shiny.

But, I’m slowly changing the way I clean, and beginning to introduce more natural methods into my routine. I often use baking soda and vinegar to clean my sink drain, and it’s surprising how useful lemons can be for cleaning limescale and deterring pests from your home.

The old-fashioned cleaning hack I remember the most is how my grandma used old newspaper. After my grandparents finished reading the morning paper over their toast and marmalade, my grandma never threw it away — she set it aside as her secret weapon for spotless glass and surfaces.

Getting hold of a physical newspaper is a bit trickier these days, given how many of us read the news online.

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