Twice cooked duck and apricot

Here is how I went about it.
Pricked a large duck skin all over. Put half a roughly chopped onion, five ready to eat apricots and a small bunch of oregano into belly cavity. Tied the legs to the body. 
Put duck into a large enough pan and place into a very hot 300°C oven. Watch carefully, turn around and turn over to crisp up and brown skin. Do not let burn.

Into the slow cooker pot, one small onion, one clove and one stick of celery all finely chopped. three inch strip of lemon peel, small bunch of oregano, not more than half a piece of star anise, eight ready to eat apricots, pepper, one cup of white wine and one cup of water. Be careful the flavourings are delicate, so do not over do it. Place duck on top, cover and on the low setting set for 3.5 hours.

Meanwhile, cut a dozen fresh apricots in half and remove stones.  Sweat off on a gentle heat half a medium onion finely chopped, without browning it. When transparent, raise temperature to high, add a cup of white wine, as it bubbles add the fresh apricots, cut face down. Leave, watch, gently shake until the juices have just about reduced. Kill the heat, cover and leave on the cooling stove.

Remove duck from slow cooker pan and put back into pre-heated oven at 300°C to crisp up skin, it will be done in just a minute or so, so watch it! Set aside to carve. It will be just barely cooked, still very moist, tender with a hint of blood still in the breast. Skin not coming out as crisp as I would like shall have to see if I can improve on this.

Serve with the slow cooker pan juices, take off fat first then just liquidise all apart from the oregano stems and the star anise. Put the fresh apricots back onto a high heat and with a Tblspn of Port bring back to the boil, then serve immediately without burning them. Two contrasting accompaniments to tender, juicy duck. Enjoy