I researched.

I procrastinated for another week ... and finally, last Sunday, I decided to clean my oven.

Our days of splattered roasted anything are pretty much down to the occasional roast chook.

The oven is mostly my place for baking ... cakes, tarts and slow cooking in cast iron pots.

That said, our oven still needed a good scrub.

I'd heard rumours about crazy people who clean ovens for money.

When I Googled I discovered a global network of oven cleaning franchises.

So good is their service that they don't call it oven cleaning. It's called oven "detailing". Like the car, without tyres.

Yep. Global oven domination, by a British company. Not the Chinese. Not the Americans. But a British company. Proper, like.

With ideas like that, no wonder the Brits are ready to break free of those oven-cleaning Europeans!

Great Britain has established a global network of domestic oven cleaning, and oven detailing specialists.

When I crawled out from under my rock, I was shocked to learn oven detailing has been available in Australia since 2005. I'm 14 years behind (Note to self: Find out what else I've missed.)

Unlike children, the company promises "you and your home will be treated with the utmost respect and the end results will be superb."

And if you thought a flexible shower rose was cleaning Nirvana, apparently using a professional oven cleaner will give you "the ultimate cleaning experience ... leaving you free to enjoy your leisure time doing what you would rather do."

I pondered the deeper meaning of "the ultimate cleaning experience"?

What has been my ultimate cleaning experience?

Was it the time I discovered my toddler was quite happy to stand under the shower when she had poo from her shoulders to her knees? Oh the joy, the 'set and forget' relief of warm water washing away the stench.

Was it the time our dog vomited in the front seat of my ex-husband's Mercedes?

Or, perhaps the time my husband waited until the arrival of a very new and expensive memory-foam bedding ensemble to vomit in his sleep?

Maybe it was the cleaning chorus of "really?" when our son 'woke' to the revelation that shower cubicles aren't self-cleaning and I introduced him to Jiff and a scrubbing brush?

Some ovens are self-cleaning. Although I'd suggest that literally means do it "your+self " cleaning.

I was up early Sunday, almost (but not quite) euphoric at the thought of the ultimate cleaning experience I was about to share with my oven.

It took me three hardware franchises and a supermarket to find the right cleaning gel ... no spray stuff for our ultimate day!

I got so carried away that I lashed out and bought new green and gold rubber gloves.

Spring felt a moment away when I suggested to my husband we go the "whole oven", ultimate cleaning experience and remove the oven door ... with coat hanger wire.

Like the tradies we are not, we fashioned two Allen keys and before you could say "ultimate cleaning experience" the oven door was removed.

We smiled the ultimate smile. I spread pink gel and waited the ultimate four hours before I scrubbed and rinsed the now ultimate sparkling oven.

My oven and I were in our happy, ultimate place until it was time to reinstall the oven door.

Huh?

Let's just say, at the time of writing ... Tuesday ... we have booked the ultimate Chris for Wednesday to install new hinges on our ultimately f....d oven.