Up late ish again this morning. Hoovered the kitchen before breakfast to try and deal with the glass situation, stumbled about, and eventually drove to tots very very late! Bear had a blast as expected although Bean kept coming to me to say someone was being not nice to him. I'm glad he came to me. I've been trying to encourage it, rather than him hitting out and getting told off himself. Some things he deals with himself but if other kids are hitting or pushing in an unfriendly way I'd rather he come tell me and ask for help instead of fighting.

Back home I realised I'd still not applied for schools for the Bean and couldn't find the letter from the council so hopped on the website to find that typically I'd missed the date for online applications by four days (while we were still in Manchester, that's my excuse - although I could have applied from there....) so had to phone up for a paper application. Going to be interesting to see where he's given a place, really. And interesting to see whether or not we accept that place too....

Got two jobs done today. Stock bubbling away (added an onion, some peppercorns and salt, and four fat garlic cloves to yesterday's pot), and a big tub of torn up paper is now in a bowl soaking in water ready to be made into a pulp tomorrow. First time I've attempted to make recycled handmade paper!

Am really really tired today. Have been snapping at Bean a lot. Both Bean and Bear have been cranky, and Bean has been really trying my patience. Hubby has put a new old oven in and it's taken all afternoon to get the old one out, the new old one cleaned up, and installed. It's very hard to not let the fed-up-ness show too much.

Bear fell asleep on my back in the meitail while Husband cooked a lovely chicken and mushroom risotto type dinner, which Bean tried a couple of mouthfuls of (eventually) before getting a piece of chicken and refusing any more. He does not like chicken. At least he's tried it (repeatedly) and made that decision. I can't force him to like it. Dinner was a battle though. Bedtime has had consequences, as a result. Should be interesting to see how they pan out: Bean initially agreed to sleep in his own bed, with his daddy there too, but got very upset as bedtime approached and was very sorry and we agreed a compromise (brokered by Daddy the Peacemaker!) that he could sleep in our bed as usual, but after he'd had milk he was to go round and climb in next to Bear and not me.... He took a while to settle down, but he's gone to sleep at last...