A boring job but it has to be done.

The way I tackle my washing up is this. Save the mucky pots, pans, and utensils for three or four days and stack them on the worktop next to the sink. My pots have very little food stuck to them I make sure every morsel is eaten. I rarely have sauce, when I do I finish off the meal with a spoon to scoop it all up. If I put a splash of oil on my steamed veg I mash in the potatoes to soak it up. Beans on toast and I wipe the plate round with a piece of bread. My dirty pots are not terribly dirty, so I can wash the lot in one bowlful of hot water. I hate washing up water that ends up like a bowl of soup, with all kinds of gunge floating in it, yuk.      

To heat the water I use the saucepan that I used to steam the veg in. It has a baskety thing in the bottom. I heat it on the top of the cooker because gas is cheaper than electricity. I only turn the water heater on in the tank when I have a bath, so most of the time what comes out of the tap is cold. I fill the bath up, turn the water off, and the tank refills with cold water. I only heat the water I use.

My washing up liquid is the cheapest from the discount stores. It's called Easy, with a lemon fragrance, and costs 39p. People say it's false economy to buy cheap liquid because you end up using more of it. I don't, I use it very sparingly because I don't want lots of bubbles. It doesn't have to cut through a lot of grease because I don't eat greasy food. I do use a little oil, but that is all absorbed into the food. I have a few bubbles here, that's because I have a spray attachment on the tap so that froths it up. It will soon disappear when I start washing.

The dinner plates go in first with the cutlery. I often use rubber gloves because I like the water fairly hot. The cutlery is scrubbed with a brush, I hate to see food stuck between the prongs of a fork, yuk, horrible.

All pots are done and stacked up on the drainer. The cat bowls are done last with any food containers to go for recycling. I dry the cutlery with a tea towel and put it away in the drawer, all the rest will stay there for an hour until I put it away. It will dry very quickly because the water was hot.

And so the cycle starts again. My aim is to use the least amount of water, less water means less cost to heat it. A tiny squirt of washing up liquid, a bottle lasts me almost a year. Good for the environment, less chemicals down the drain. Tea towels don't need washing so often because I hardly use them. I wipe the worktops with a dishcloth made from an old sheet, and scrub round the sink as the water goes down the plughole. All done in one bowl of water. No dishwasher tablets, and no gallons of water. Squeaky clean pots and pans at a very low cost.
Toodle pip.
PS Thanks for your support yesterday.