AN HONEST CATCH UP / EMMA'S SUNDAY DIARIES

Good morning guys, welcome back to Sunday's Diary. My name's Emma, these are my Sunday diaries. There's quite a bit of building work going on out here today, so it's a little bit noisy. I'm going to try and vlog in between the building noise. It's looking like a really nice week here. We're going to have lots of sun, blue skies, quite high temperatures, so I've got some jobs to do in the garden, got some cooking, got some places we're going to go and see. Actually feeling a little bit on edge today, because I should have gone to the allotment plot this morning. It's kind of like my designated day to go, but I took it off. I didn't go today because I was like, I've been so stressed recently, and so many of you have been saying, Emma, take some time off, take a day off. You know, you don't have to go down there all the time, just like take some time to yourself. I'm trying really hard to do that today, so I didn't go to the allotment. I didn't feel like going today, to be fair, but now I just kind of, I'm left with like, I'm left with this kind of anxiety, I suppose, hangover anxiety from not going and not doing what I should be doing, even though I shouldn't should be doing it. Does that make any sense? I'm just wondering if maybe I would have felt better if I'd have just gone, but I'm trying very hard to reduce my stress levels and take a little bit more time out, even if that means that I miss a few vlogs here and there, so I'm doing my best. I'm going to try and take today really slow, just try and sort of do things that I want to do, take my time with it, don't feel like I need to be rushed. I can't complain about the work, because we're about to have our kitchen done, so it's going to be incredibly noisy, so I can't complain about any kind of noise coming on. But yeah, I think it's going to be a really nice week. I've got a new book to start, a finished hamnet, I absolutely loved it. I'm actually gutted that I finished it. I've got some new recipes to try, got some baking to do, and I've got loads of gardening to do as well, so I think it should be a really nice week. It is lunchtime, I'm going to have my lunch outside, so I'm going to go and make it and show you what I make. Maybe put my headphones in when I come back out. Right, it's a very simple lunch today, but I will show you anyway. You know me, I like to show you the simple things as well as the more complicated recipes. So that was just a can of tuna, then we'll whack in some red onion, because tuna and red onion go really well together, always. That might just be because Costa Coffee sell really nice tuna baguette, which has got red onion in it. That might be where my information is coming from. Sorry, I've got the tumble dryer on, guys, so there's a little bit of a rumble. There's a rumble in the background, it's the tumble dryer, because I'm trying to dry some bedsheets really quickly. Maybe we'll just do half a red onion. Do you think half a red onion is enough? I don't want to, like, blow my socks off with onion. Okay, and then I've got the Marks and Spencer's olive oil mayonnaise, which is really good. It's only made with six ingredients, and it's also really tasty. I don't know how long it lasts, you know, I was just thinking this, oh, four weeks. So once you've opened it, put it in the fridge, it lasts four weeks. Because my husband was saying, does it last less time or something, if it's got less sort of, I don't know, doesn't have all that stuff that keeps it good for long, but apparently it lasts for four weeks, that's plenty of time. Right, got a bit of mayo in there. Right, got a little bit of iceberg lettuce, probably way past its best, but I'm still going to use it because it looks okay. Fun fact about iceberg lettuce, rabbits can't eat it, or guinea pigs, because it's got too much water in it and it swells in their stomachs. Little fun fact there, where I'll add a little bit of the red onion, and I'll warn my husband not to kiss me after I've had this lunch, because there's a lot of onion going into this. I think I've got radishes. I do, so they'll go in as well. Stick a little bit of mayo with that as well, because I do like my salads to be a little bit creamy. Creamy and crunchy, that's like the perfect salad combination in my eyes. And I have a sweet potato that I have whizzed in the microwave, which we will just chop open. A little bit of butter on that just to soften it, and then we shall add our tuna. That is a whole can, but they're sort of mini cans. These cans, I got them from Mercado. They're sort of smaller, smaller cans. So you can sort of use the whole thing in one go and not have to stick it in the fridge. Right, and that, my friends, is my lunch today. Very simple, but delicious. Right, I'm going to sow some of these into these pots here. So these are candy tuft fairy mix. Very easy, scented and quick to flower. So you plant them sort of early spring and you should get a late flowering, and you should get a late summer flowering, or you can plant them in the autumn time and they will flower the following spring. So I'm hoping that they'll work. It does say they're quite easy, so I'll just whack them in and we'll just see what happens. Very small seeds. Good morning, guys. It's the next day, still lovely and blue skies. They actually did say it was going to be cloudy today and a bit colder, but it's literally just blue skies and sun. So we're going to have to do something. I think we're going to go down to Bushy Park, which is in Kingston, have a little wander round. They've got the most beautiful rhododendrons, rhododendrons, rhododendrons, and they flower every year and they're beautiful. They've got like every single colour. They've also, I think, got a lot of the same flowers that are at Wisley, RHS Wisley. So last week we went to Wisley and it was like 60 pounds for all of us, for all four of us, because we don't have an RHS pass, which I might actually get, to be fair, because I think it is good value for money. But yeah, I think at Bushy Park, they've got a lot of the same kind of plants there for free. So we're going to go and have a little look around, get an ice cream, just have a stroll in the sun. I think it'd be really nice. And then I think tomorrow we're going to go to the garden centre because I've got a few bits I need to pick up for the allotment plot. I realised in my last couple of vlogs that I haven't been able to kind of talk openly and freely with you. I've been vlogging a lot in my kitchen doorway and in my back garden. And it's actually, it's really quiet there. And my neighbour's back door kind of backs onto our back door and they've got it open all the time. So I feel a bit awkward kind of vlogging there. And then when I go to the back of the garden, my neighbour comes out and starts doing work in his garden. So there's no privacy here basically. And it does really frustrate me because it's not that I don't like our neighbours, though we actually don't get on with our neighbours that well. But it's not that I hate anyone or I don't like them being out when I'm out. It's just the fact that it's my private garden and I don't feel very secluded there or very private at all. I feel like it's a shared space and I already have the allotments as a shared space. So at home, I kind of want it to feel a little bit more private. When we get the kitchen extension done, which is happening very soon, we're having like big doors put on the back of our garden and it will all open in the middle of the garden instead of at the side. And then we're going to put six foot fences up all around our garden. We're just going to put a second fence up on our territory, on our side of the garden, six foot all around it. And then the doors will open sort of in the middle of the garden, take us straight out, and it will just feel a lot more secluded, I hope. I mean, I know it will. It will because we won't be like opening onto their kitchen anymore. So I think it will be better. I really can't wait for it to get started. We're still in sort of planning, putting the planning permission through and stuff. But it should go through because a lot of people down here have done the same kitchen extension. We're not very creative. We're not very unique. This is literally a bog standard kitchen extension that like five or six houses have also done. So it will be worth it when it's done. I just wanted to say I'm about to start this book, which is called Permanent. So I finished Hamnet and I'm onto this book now. I'm going to start it today. I can't tell you how excited I am to read this book. It looks incredible. I think I read a bit of it to you last week, but it's a little bit of a fantasy kind of book, a bit like if you've read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, kind of along that kind of storyline pathway of it's a little bit fantasy, not real. I don't read a lot of books like that. That's why I'm making a big deal of it. The books that I read are very much true to life. I don't read a lot of things that are like dreamlike or anything. So I'm very excited to get started. I will let you know how it goes later when I'm a couple of chapters in. We're going to go to Bushy Park now, have a look around, like I said. So I'll check in again after that. hi again, guys. Back from Bushy Park now. I'm vlogging in the same place just because I just seem to be able to speak a little bit more freer here, which is actually really nice. I feel like in the last couple of vlogs, I think I said it before, but I felt like my personality was like not in the room with us. I was just like talking like a robot, just like saying what we're doing and that's it. So it's nice to be able to talk a bit freer. I think we're going to go to the garden centre now and just pick up a few things that I need for the allotment plot. I will take you with me and then we're going to get back and just sit in the garden and hopefully start my book. Right, guys, let me quickly show you what I picked up from the garden. Right, I have kept saying this, but I did keep saying this year, I'm going to buy my tomatoes as plants and not sow them from a seed just for ease. A lot of you disagree with that. I've done it. It's too late now. So we've got the moneymaker, which is an excellent one. Oh, actually, we've got two moneymakers. Some of my favourite tomatoes moneymakers. Really, really good. We've got a Roma tomato. All of these plants look really healthy. Really good. We've got a grafted super sweet, which looks really nice. And then I think this is one of those yellow ones. Yes, it is a golden. It's a gold win tomato. So again, looks really good and healthy. I did plant my tomatoes last year from Plug Plants and from the same garden centre, and they did fantastically. I mean, this one's massive. It's already got flowers on. I should probably take those off. I have a feeling I should take them off, but you know what? We'll figure that out tomorrow at the allotment. So we've got the tomatoes. I also got some French marigolds. These are the French fireball, which are really good with tomatoes. They complement them really well. I think they keep the pests away. They keep whitefly away or something like that. So that's the plants that we picked up. Just showing you outside because it's a bit lighter out here. We also got some spring bulbs. So we've got some gladiolus, gladiolus, fairytale pink. They look beautiful, don't they? We got some gladiolus, are they gladiolus? I thought they were gladiolus. Magenta princess, which again look beautiful. I also picked up some dahlias. This is the summer sorbet variety. Very gorgeous. And picked up these dahlia single mix. These ones are really good for attracting pollinators because they're nice and open, nice big open flowers. And these are all going to go into the allotment plot whenever I get down there. And that is everything I picked up from the garden centre. So I think we're going to start some dinner now. And then we'll get all that down to the allotment, I think tomorrow or the next day. But it's going to be nice all week. So I'll have plenty of time to plant all of that out, hopefully. There we go. I didn't talk you through this. A very simple dinner today. Just some linguine, some mints, a can of tomatoes, onion. A little bit of seasoning and some broccoli on the side. A little bit of a weird kind of mix of meals. But yeah, just keeping it simple tonight. Guys, this week has really got away from me. I went into this week so positively, thinking there's so much I want to do. I want to do so much baking and cooking. I want to try some new recipes. I want to do some gardening. And it just hasn't turned out that way. It's just turned into one of those weeks where I've just been working the whole week and answering emails and trying to catch up on things. And also try and keep the house in check and do the washing and the laundry and feed the kids. And all the meals that we've had have been so basic and boring that I haven't felt inspired to show you any. Even the mints that I made last night with the linguine was so basic, so boring. There's nothing different about it, you know. So I just sort of didn't want to show you. I was going to go out today, but it's so windy. It's so windy. It's like the windiest day we've ever had, even though it's blue skies and sunshine. So I'm just not going to be able to film anything out there. I did want to share a little bit of thoughts on my books. I'm reading that book, Permanence, which I won't show you again because I feel like I repeat myself a lot in these vlogs. It's a really weird book. It's a little bit arty and written in a really strange way. And I'm just trying to get into it. I'm about 30 pages in and I'm not quite there yet with it. I'm not quite in it. But I feel like when I sort of get used to the writing style, I'll be proper in the book. So I'll probably give you a bit more of a review on it next week because it's just a bit weird. It's just a bit different. And anyway, this is a very long-winded way of me saying that I'm going to wrap the vlog up here because I just have nothing else to show you this week. I will be back next week in my home garden, hopefully with more to show you and more to share. I'm going to do my best. I think I have shared a few times of how sort of I've been stressed recently. And I'm trying to sort of lower my workload and just put up things that make me happy. And I'm just vlogging when I can. So I'm sorry if the vlogs are a little bit shorter. But as soon as I get inspired again, they will become longer and I will do my best to upload more. So I'll be back again on Monday at the allotment plot or next Sunday in my home garden. So I'll see you whenever I see you. Thanks for watching, guys. Bye.