Headless chicken - me?

Here's a soothing shot to round off the day:

...and by golly, am I in need of a soothing shot!!!

Today, I have been mostly:

• sowing my Charlotte seed potatoes in the vegetable patch (huge hurray! achievement of the day!)
• attempting, in snatches of 10 minutes at a time, to paint the second coat of lovely Ronseal spring green on Cluckingham Palace - deadlines, deadlines...in between:
• hanging out load after load of washing (sigh! A woman's work is seriously, never done...the joys of going away for a few days coupled with the sneaking feeling that this might be the best weather day of the week?)
• of course, subsequently bringing in, folding and putting away said loads of washing...
• tripping over cats - numerous times - as they seem to have now gone overtime on the 'we missed you! Don't ever leave us again!' routine...
• preparing what seems a neverending round of snacks and meals for 3 children who must evidently be considering a group growth spurt
• dragging aforementioned 3 children around the supermarket once I'd realised that, having been away, the cupboards and fridge did look frighteningly bare, in light of the pace of eating they were already setting in the morning, along with the quite likely possibility that additional family members due to descend at the weekend to reclaim their loaned daughter might also appreciate being fed!  This added to the nightmare realisation that I needed to restock NOW or face the prospect of doing it tomorrow - the last day before the bank holiday weekend!!! Eeek - what a stupid, feckless housewife I obviously am...
• a great deal of this:
  
• 

(Which is where I paused amid the insanity of the day to breathe a while and notice the gorgeously glowing colour of the sun through the leaves of the tree above the playground bench I was temporarily collapsed on - a gift also to you, good reader, at the top of this page.)

Unfortunately this was to be only a momentary pause before the round of food production continued towards tea-time, punctuated by this:

...which only goes to prove exactly how warm and glorious it still was at 5pm this afternoon, when the sun is normally starting to wilt in its power! (sort of like me at that point)

After tea was finished and baths were underway - hallelujah! reinforcements arrived in the form of A, no doubt refreshed(!) by his hot drive from Birmingham - nevertheless all child-related duties were unceremoniously dumped upon him as I disappeared back to complete my 'chicken house-interrupted' paint job.

I do make the day sound much worse than it was, don't I?  Ooops, of course thank heavens for the fine weather, as at least I could snatch the odd 10 minutes here and there to enjoy a few garden jobs to keep me sane, whilst they were happily entertained bouncing, squirting, launching imaginary spying missions from the playtower, etc....

I even got a moment to photograph the newest beauty opening in the garden today, to help me remember it so that we work around it carefully when creating the new wood shelter later in the summer:

Clematis montana on the War of the Worlds tripod

Amazingly blue ceanothus which hides round the corner, completely unnoticed most of the time

Despite it's rather unfortunately painted meaty wooden tripod 'support', (which Bob saw fit to coat with black (?) preservative for the first foot or so of the legs, making it look like it's wearing black wellies),  this clematis montana is a delight today, and the ceanothus peeking behind it is something that I always forget is there, it's so tucked away as if hidden in embarassment.  Looking closer, there's also a rose of some sort mingled in with the clematis, but I have no clue what it is at all...Hopefully these photos will remind me to nurture and appreciate these fabulous mature plants as I should.

But just look at that sky!  The most heavenly of days x