Washing on a Monday

Once upon a time, the housewife of old would do all her chores on a regular day of the week, and Monday was washday. However, at the moment, I am washing as and when I think I can get the items dry. I have two airers in the house, and as soon as the load on one of them is dry enough to iron, another load goes into the machine to get washed. So, yesterday, I made bread. I am not sure which day was traditionally baking day way back then, but I was in the mood yesterday, so I made two batches of dough in the Kenwood mixer. Each batch was enough for three loaves, and they rose slowly over the course of lunchtime and went in to the oven at about 2pm. By the time the YFG came out of school, there was fresh bread to be spread with butter and enjoyed whilst having a drink and a chat. The loaves have been sliced and stored in the freezer, so I am hoping that there will be enough there for a week, or maybe longer! I know I will do it all again sometime soon...

Sunday was actually a lovely day as we went to the Carol Service at the chapel. It was a traditional service of Nine Lessons and Carols. There was a visiting choir from another branch of the church in a nearby town, which sang some of the carols, and we sang the rest. It was great, and I was asked to do one of the readings, which brought back memories from my childhood: whenever it was my mother's turn to do a reading at church, she would get me or my sister to do it, so that eventually we were put on the rota instead of her. The last time I had done a reading in church was at my mother's funeral service in 1998, so it was quite moving to do it again after all this time.

There was also a Christmas fair at the Village Hall on Sunday afternoon, which was very well attended by people from all parts of the village. We had a book stall there, and there were probably about 18 stalls, as well as entertainment, Santa's Grotto, refreshments and a raffle, so the organisers should have raised a good amount for the Summer Gala.

Yesterday the FH killed four of the cockerels, three of which went in to the freezer and the other went straight into the slow cooker to be roasted slowly overnight. I stripped the meat off the bones this morning and the meat will be eaten cold tonight with buttery mash and pickles. We have nearly finished the first batch of table birds, but the second lot are not yet ready to come outside yet and it will be another couple of months before they are big enough to eat.

Bright and sunny but very cold is the weather today, and it is forecast to remain like this for a couple of days, I think, although there might be some of the white stuff in a day or two - the FGs would be very excited if it settled enough to make a snowman....