MY LONDON LIFE DIARIES / LIVING IN LONDON, DREAMING OF THE COUNTRYSIDE

What are you doing in there? What are you doing in your cage? I thought you hated being in your little cage and now you're sitting in it. Willingly. You little pipple you are. Little pipple. Look what I got Pippi. Some sunflowers. Aren't they beautiful? Oh my goodness I love them. I can't believe they're in there. You told me you told me that you don't ever want to go in there again. Remember we started biting all the sides and we were kicking all our head out and now look look you're in there and you don't even need to be in there. Morning guys welcome back to my Sunday Diaries if you are new to this channel my name is Emma these are my Sunday Diaries just showing you what I'm up to in my little London life I say that in a nice endearing way my little London life because I'm not anyone special I'm not doing anything profound with this little life of mine I'm just living it so if somebody said don't say it's a little life it sort of is a little life but I sort of want it to be a little life it's a little happy life I suppose I've been to the allotment and then I went straight back out again I can't open these grabbed myself a drink because I was really hot and I saw these and I just couldn't resist they're £5 I mean I can sort of understand that because sunflowers are quite a tricky thing to grow like slugs eat them all the time and also once you've grown them these are like single stemmed sunflowers so once they've been picked they're picked, they're gone so I sort of do understand the fibre for these, I actually think maybe they could probably cost a little bit more I'm not going to lie just because I know how hard they are to grow though maybe they don't find them that hard to grow I don't know we're going to snip them try and prolong their life a little bit I'm going to cut them at an angle like that sort of diagonal because then when you cut your stems diagonally it has a bigger surface area to absorb water and it means that they will suck up more water and live longer I don't really know if there's any truth in that but I've always done it so why stop now I didn't really want you to do that guys why are you all facing away from each other now like they're enemies mortal enemies now I just wanted them to be together well okay fine maybe they're actually not friends and they're relieved of the space you just sit there and just look unhappy then that's fine right I'm going to go out into the garden and give everything a water I'm going to fill up my little pond out there I've got this little pond in a pot which keeps drying out so I'm going to go and fill that up and we'll go from there I think good boy I've got to watch him out here because the fox likes to come to the garden now so oi oi oi don't go in the drain come on there's a fox who might get you this way come back in come on thank you this is my garden pond in a pot actually it doesn't need topping up I think I did it last night and the level stayed up but it's got all these beautiful it's got all these beautiful lily pads are they water lilies just gorgeous I really think these are just my favourite things in the garden ever actually I think these are my favourite ever plants water lilies they are so so gorgeous and the way they float on the top of the water just it feels so relaxing looking at them I just love them this beds doing very well these are my courgettes and my runner beans and I've got this little sort of teepee what I'm actually going to do I'm going to keep things quite simple I'm just going to tie a little bit of twine around the teepee to sort of encourage them to grow up it obviously every single one that I planted has germinated and survived because I always sort of because of the allotment I always think to plant more than I need but actually I don't think I needed to here just going to show you you don't need all that space in an allotment to grow a lot of food this is going to give me so much food I haven't really done too much in my garden this year I've mainly just planted into containers normally at this time of year I've got quite a lot of flowers and I go out there and I just sort of pick loads of flowers and have little bunches in the house but because I've not done that I don't have anything to put with those sunflowers so those sunflowers are just going to have to look a little bit sad and anti-social with each other I'm in this weird in-between stage where I'm itching to get out and sort of change things in the garden and plant stuff in and just sort of live my life but I sort of feel like my whole life is on standby right now because of the move so it's just a really weird place to be in it feels really weird and slightly uncomfortable, I'm not going to lie hopefully it will all be worth it in the end though I have no idea what time it is what time is it? it's three o'clock so I think I'm going to whack together a little snack for the kids and then I think we've got to get out of the house because I think we've got people coming to see it so we're going to have to go to the park and get an ice cream or we're going to have to the stress, we're going to have to go and get an ice cream look at this as well I don't know if you can see those things stuck on the ceiling it's a bit dark here so my camera's not focusing that well they are little sticky men that my son got for Christmas when he was about six years old and he threw them up onto the ceiling and I've never taken them down they've just sort of become a feature and not one buyer has picked up on them I don't think any estate agent's seen them how funny is that I might just leave them here for the new people it is actually a few days later after the last clips that I showed you which I think was us at the park just kind of trying to kill time while we had a house viewing it's been quite unpleasantly hot here in the UK especially where I am in South London whenever the temperature rises it gets really sticky and humid I'm pretty sure it's been like that everywhere but it just feels awful it's like smoggy it's like a physical blanket around you and it's just not been very pleasant it's the evening time and I think I'm going to do a little bit of gardening because the weather's just about cooled down enough I've just had dinner as well so I'm full so I feel like I'm in a really good place to potter about in the garden I'm sure you've noticed that in most of my vlogs I will start them with good morning it's because I always seem to film in the morning just because I do all my filming in the morning and get it done and then I have the afternoon to edit and do other work and answer emails and sort out the house and stuff I sort of do all the filming in the morning even for these vlogs but today we're mixing it up it's really such a nice temperature so what I want to do is clear out one of my raised beds here and put in some salad seeds I think you would have seen in the vlog from the week that I sowed some lettuce and spring onion in my allotment plot and I'm going to sow some here as well in my home garden because it's just outside and I can protect it better we're going to clear the broccoli bed I believe I already have some leeks growing in here but the broccoli is finished it's started to flower and the flowers have finished as well and I think there's just weeds in here so we're going to clear it, top it up and then sow some seeds that's going to pull up on my leeks hold on tight leeks hold on tight I'm going to top up with some more of this compost this is the Grow More compost I'm going to leave it linked below in the description because it is such good stuff and actually this was recommended to me and I forgot, so thank you so much if you're the person who recommended this to me it is fantastic it is by far the best compost I have ever found there you go, I've said it I think I've just about rescued those leeks I could actually separate these and replant them, I'm not going to do it today though because I think it's too hot I think we need to wait for some rain to start doing jobs like this because I just won't be able to keep them alive little gem is my favourite lettuce I'm also going to plant out some rainbow swiss chard which looks amazing I don't think I planted this at the allotment and I can't remember why maybe I just forgot to be fair but I'm going to put it in at the end here because these are sort of new newly filled raised beds with really good compost I feel like I can be really precise with where I'm planting these and where I'm sowing these seeds whereas normally I just sort of scatter them because the bed has sort of got weeds in and the soil is not great but here I can really see where it is and I'm pretty sure it's going to come up where I've planted it as well which is quite remarkable really right, you know who else is going to love that? the cat, that's the brand new cat toilet basically that I've created there so we're going to have to cover it with something I've got these little grill things I thought these were shelves I've given up with the gardening but I did get some stuff in the ground which I'm quite happy about I'm going to pop outside and continue reading this book I feel like I've sort of turned a very small slightly less not a right angled corner but kind of like a slow curved corner with this book and I'm actually quite enjoying it right now so while I'm on a bit that I'm enjoying I think I'm just about just over half way through I'm going to go and read it and try my best to like it I still don't love it but I'm sort of in it now do you know what I mean? I know who everyone is, I know the storyline I know what's happening so it's hard for me to sort of criticise it anymore anyway, I'm going to go read this before the train comes right, like I've said it's very hot and I'm very tired so I'm going to make a really really simple dinner which I thought I would share so this is just roll puff pastry which I can't open right, which I've rolled out on a baking tray got some pesto and we'll just spread that on there then we shall layer on some tomato it's a bit thick, is that two pieces? yes that is two pieces and some mozzarella dot that all about place a little bit of salt a little bit of pepper drizzle of olive oil, extra virgin olive oil that's more than a drizzle I need to get a little jug a drizzly jug pop it in the oven right, while that is cooking and it's just until the puff pastry is basically puffed up and it's gone a nice light brown I bought myself a basil plant from the supermarket and I'm going to pot him on and try and keep him alive. I know that when you buy herbs from the supermarket it's not one plant they basically stuff loads of seeds into the pot, so can you see that each of these is like a different plant, so I'm not sure whether I'm not sure whether to plant the whole thing into a pot and try and keep the whole thing alive, or just to take out maybe a couple of the plants I think I might actually take out a couple of the plants I feel like that might be the right thing to do. Yeah, because my first thought was to pot on the whole thing but actually now I'm thinking let's take out a couple of the plants and just pot those on and try and keep those alive I think that might work, you know there's loads and loads of little stems in here, so loads of different plants I'm wondering if I might kill them when I separate them though because they're quite established. We can only try. Right, if I pot on maybe four stuff those back in there Let's pop them on the windowsill and we'll just give it a go and this I'll just have to use really quickly I think I've got a spring onion which I'm trying to make grow roots and it's not doing it so far, and I've also stuck some celery into a mug in hope that it starts regrowing and it's yet to regrow but I quite enjoy conducting little experiments Okay, here is the finished I guess tart? I'm not quite sure what I call it just a puff pastry thing really So then I'm just going to pop a few basil leaves over the top and that my friends is dinner What do we think of this then? Really, really simple I'm just going to throw together a little side salad with it and that's it Morning guys We are off this morning to Mordenhall Park, I think I've taken you there quite a few times It's fairly local to us, local-ish It's about a 15-20 minute drive I think we're just going to get coffee and then they've got a really nice garden centre there which I'm going to go and have a little look around The weather is looking like it's going a little bit down in temperature over the next few days which is excellent because I'll be able to actually get out and do some more gardening jobs which is great So I think I'm going to take you with me I really want to buy some more mealworms for Einstein and all of his little babies because there's so many little fledglings coming to the allotment now and I've got nothing to feed them and I have to feed them because I want to make friends with them and build a rapport and that's how you do it. So I might get some mealworms and also I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for a hosepipe My hosepipe here broke over the winter because the water froze and then I went out and turned it on like an idiot and it just exploded so I've been putting off buying a new one because obviously we are moving house but I think I'm going to buy one because the garden really needs a good water. No rain is due for a little while still so this is nearly the third week that we haven't had any rain in the UK as I'm vlogging So yeah I'm going to look for a hosepipe so I can give the garden a good drink that's what I think it needs but anyway we're going to head out now and hopefully there will be lots of nice flowers and stuff to show you there so let's go to Moreton Hall Park Music They didn't sell hoses which is so annoying. I think we're going to have to go to B&Q at some point to get a hose. I was convinced the garden centre would have hoses but they didn't. I did pick up some mealworms I got these ones by Henry Bell. The packaging is biodegradable or recyclable which I quite liked about it. I think I'm going to have to soak them for the babies because I don't think they like to eat them when they're really hard like this so I'll soak them in some water before I feed them to little fledglings but yeah they're for blue tits wrens and robins though I'm pretty sure the crows and magpies eat them as well and probably pigeons and all the other birds and the foxes and the squirrels. Anyway I'm going to wrap up this Sunday's vlog here. I hope you've enjoyed it this week. It's been a little bit sporadic all over the place but that's how we like it. Oh yeah a little bit of an update actually just before I go because my celery which I've stuck into some water here is growing back. Can you actually believe that? It is actually getting new leaves and growing back. I cannot believe it. Spring onion so far nothing no roots at all it just looks like it's slowly dying The basil plants are still alive which is excellent but this this is very very exciting I will keep you updated on that for next week. Anyway have a lovely week I'll be back at the allotment tomorrow I will see you when I see you thanks for watching. Bye!