Back to school

Both the FGs went back to school today - with a bit of a sigh of relief from me, I am ashamed to say. They are hard work when they are home together at the moment as there is constant competition between them, bickering and one-upmanship - and it becomes quite exhausting after a week. Only when I turn on them both do they come together in a united front against me! This is the part of them going to school that saddens me, as I do see this change in their attitudes to one another as a result of them being at school, and away from the home for a large part of the day. I need to find some way of helping them to re-connect with one another in an appropriate way; I can handle a bit of friendly rivalry but this is becoming a chore to deal with. Any advice out there??

Today I have done only one load of washing as I have no more line space under the verandah and the weather is not good enough to actually peg it on the outside line. I have one loaf in the bread machine and some dough for rolls proving at the moment - I am going to bake the rolls in the remoska. The bread was good, it seems, so hopefully the rolls will be too.

Another cockerel has been eaten this weekend. I cooked him slowly over about 5 and a half hours in the slow-cooker on Saturday evening, and then took most of the meat off the bones, and refrigerated it. The remaining bones were left in the slow-cooker, and I added a couple of onions, a parsnip and some carrots as well as a kettleful of water. This was then left to cook all night and the following morning and we had chicken soup for lunch on Sunday. For the evening meal, I took some chicken breast meat, added a can of condensed mushroom soup, covered it all with a suet crust and made a pie. This was very well received and appreciated! There is still more chicken to be had, so I think it may become a curry tonight.

I am trying not to use the oven much and so that is one reason to cook the chicken in the slow-cooker, and when I cooked the pie yesterday, I also made jam roly-poly with the leftover suet dough, and a walnut cake, so I made the most of the opportunity. Using the Remoska, the bread machine and the slow-cooker, which all use relatively little electricity, should mean lower electricity bills - we can hope!