A WEEK IN MY LONDON LIFE / Exploring Richmond, the Eclipse and watering my garden

It's just so violating and so upsetting. It's heartbreaking having a plot broken onto. I can just see the world getting darker and darker, it's so weird. Good morning guys, how are you all doing? Welcome back to my Sunday Diaries. My name's Emma, these are my Sunday Diaries. I'm sure I've said that so many times that you are sick of it, but if you are enjoying these vlogs, do hit the subscribe button. I would love to have you following along so you don't miss any of my content. I just vlog all about my home garden, my life in London, I take you out to places, we do lots of cooking, I show you what I'm cooking with from produce that I picked from the allotment plot, so if that sounds like your jam, hit the subscribe button. I cannot believe I'm saying this, but we're actually going into another heat wave this week, which is absolutely insane. Insane. I genuinely, the weather keeps changing. It kept saying we were going to have, oh my husband's actually hoovering, I can't believe it, it's a miracle. We keep having the weather say it's going to rain, it's like 60% chance of rain, and then by the time we get to that day, it disappears and it's just sunshine all day. So officially this week is another heat wave. Fantastic, that's exactly what my allotment and my garden need not. It's fine, we'll get through it, we will get through it. And then hopefully the week after, rain. Rain is on the way, hopefully. Anyway, I went out to the bookshop the other day and actually picked up a couple of books that I wanted to share with you quickly. Now one of them was really, I've heard a lot about this book, and it's this one, it is Piranesi. I've heard so much about it, I think it went through a really popular stage, didn't it, sort of this time last year, and it's won Women's Prize for Fiction. I heard very mixed reviews about this, I heard that it's a really good idea and story, but that the ending felt really rushed, and a lot of people were very unsatisfied with it. So it wasn't a book that I picked up, but my husband read it. My husband read it a few weeks ago, and he said to me that apparently there's a film coming out about it, and that I should really just read it. And I did ask him about the ending, and I was like, didn't you find the ending really unsatisfying and annoying? And he said yes. But he said it's still worth reading. So I thought I would pick it up. I mean, it's quite a short book. It's not the longest book in the world. Also picked up this one, another short book, this is Orbital. I've heard lots about this as well. It is what you think, it's a space book, it's about some astronauts in space. I don't want to read too much about it, I just want to get stuck in. It's quite a short book. So I don't feel like I need to know too much about it before I start reading it. But I'll let you know what I think of this. I am enjoying the shorter books at the moment, the short stories. I read a lot of what's her face? What's she called? Claire Keegan. Claire Keegan's books are fantastic as well. And so I'm excited to get stuck in. Again, let me know if you've read this and your thoughts on it. I'm sure I'll get through them quite quickly. Anyway, about to head out to the day. I think we're going to pop to Richmond, do a little bit of a walk along the riverside, get some lunch, maybe get a drink, do a little bit of shopping. I will show you as much of that as I can. It's looking like a very hot day. It's going to be like 31 degrees. So I'm going to get out there and just film what I can in the heat. Anyway, let's get going. Are you going to be all right today, Pippin? If I pop out? Yeah. Are you going to go to sleep? Yeah. Okay. Good boy. Again, guys. So we went to Richmond yesterday and I have to say it was so quiet. It was so quiet out. I feel like people might've had enough of the hot weather now because even the roads are quiet. The train was quiet. All of the shopping area was quiet. The river was a little bit busy, but not as busy as it has been before. So I just wonder if people have just had enough of this heat now and not rushing out in the sunshine like people do at the beginning of summer. It was just so nice and quiet and peaceful and I just loved it. So it was just really nice just to wander around, do a little bit of sightseeing, get some lunch, sit on the hill. Oh, you are a bit wonky. Sorry. I've just got back from the allotment plot and I've just made myself a ham salad for lunch. This is basically a pretty standard lunch for me. It's just lots of salad bits and a little bit of ham on the top. I usually just put whatever I've got with it. Also, I got sent some of these very kindly by Yorkshire Tea. This is their new like iced tea range and this one is peach and raspberry and they just sent me some. I just reached out and said, do you want some to try? And I was like, yeah, go on then. Cause I actually really like iced tea though. I do still drink hot tea, even if it's like 50 degrees outside, I will still be drinking a hot cup of tea, but I thought, let's try it. That's really nice. Okay. I wasn't expecting it to be that nice. That's really nice. This is their peach and raspberry. That's absolutely gorgeous. That's so summery. That's a big thumbs up for me. Oh, they've done a brilliant job with those. Also got my Ocado shopping today and it came with a free magazine. Um, and this is somewhere where I get a lot of my recipe ideas. A lot of you always ask how I get ideas for my recipes, where I get them from. And this is one of the places I get them from. Ah, look, very summery front cover. Ocado life. Look at that ice cream. Oh my goodness. Let's see what ideas we've got in here for recipes. Peak seasoned tomatoes and Zingy preserved lemons. There we go. See it's tomato season. Oh my goodness. My favourite time of year. Tomato salad with burrata and chilli jam. That looks amazing. Melon and halloumi skewers, orange melon and elderflower gin slushie. Hello. Without maybe alcohol-free gin. Delicious. Oh look. And then you've got a load of really easy midweek meals. So one pan pasta, edamame prawn toast. That looks actually insane. Yeah. Oh, it's so good. This, oh my gosh, is that Percy? It is Percy, but he's already eaten all his food. So he's not going to come down. I'm going to have to refill his, his food thing. Some ravenous little pigeon. Um, I think this is free sometimes if you get your Ocado shop delivered. Anyway, I'm going to sit out here and enjoy my salad and have a little flick through there. And, um, hopefully we'll give a couple of those recipes a go this week. Let me just see if that stuff that I used in my pond the other day worked. I put in these little, um, mosquito bits to kill all those little mosquito things. Oh, there's still a few in here. Not as many. There's definitely not as many. I need to top this all up. Look at this. This isn't even in the water. I wonder if I need to re-jig it a little bit because these don't look like they have much room anymore. So if I move the fountain over and then you've got a bit of room now to spread out. Do you want to spread out a little bit? No. Now you want to stay exactly where you are. Well, you can spread out now if you want to. You can go that way. And then I wonder if these hydrangeas might need a little bit of a deadhead. I don't know if you deadhead hydrangeas though. No, I think I'll leave them. I think I'll just leave them. Maybe they just need a bit more of a water. They do tend to dry out so quickly, hydrangeas. What's happened to this now? Why is it doing that? This hose, I swear, honestly, I'm going to have a heart attack over this hose. Right. Hopefully you can see me there. My garden's very dappled shade or it's like in full sunshine. I actually prefer the dappled shade so I don't melt because it is very, very hot today. We're in a fifth heat wave, by the way, if I hadn't mentioned that already. Um, I've also got this to plant out today. This is celery because I tried very hard to grow celery from a seed this year, but my seeds just wouldn't germinate. Um, and so I bought some celery and somebody said, if you take the bottom of the celery that you've bought and stick it into water, it will start to grow. And I didn't believe it, but look, it started to grow and now it's got some roots at the bottom. I thought I'd plant it outside. I think you're supposed to plant it. I just have to keep it really well watered. I think I'll have to see, see how it goes. Right. Hopefully this hose will work for me now. Are you going to work hose? Please. So sorry, but has Percy been rewarding all of the food I've been giving him? Has he been rewarding me by pooing all over my courgette? So how's he doing that? Percy, honestly, why? I reckon these are Jack B Littles. I reckon I've grown the wrong thing. That doesn't look like any courgette I've ever grown before. I don't know why it's done this. I reckon I could grow it up. Yeah. See, I've never known a courgette to grow up like that, like to have a vine that long. I know they get some vines, but I've never seen this unless I've just literally never seen it. It could be that I've mixed up a courgette seed with a pumpkin seed, which is fine because it seems to be doing quite well. He's quite happy. These ones down here are turning a little bit viney, but not, not like that one where it's gone really long. You know, just a little bit. Are any of them giving me any indication as to what they are? No, I'm just still just getting literally just flowers. I need something to develop. So I know what I'm working with here. Excuse me, sir. What are you? We're just going to have to wait and see. Right for dinner tonight, I'm keeping things quite simple. I was going to make, as you can hear, I'm a bit tired. I was going to make that one pot pasta, one pan pasta. Um, but I realised we've got mints, so I better use that up today. I'm being dictated by what's in our fridge, not what I want to cook. So, and then this really look at the bottom of that pan. Isn't that horrendous? It doesn't seem to matter how many times we scrub it. I think it's permanently stained. And then this is relatively simple. This is a whack everything in the pan kind of job. My favourite kind of dinner, to be fair. So a little bit of olive oil in the bottom, back in that onion, some red pepper and some leeks. Whack all that in. And now we will stick in some organic beef mince. Then I think I'm going to do some oregano, some garlic granules. So I'm just going to put a little bit of that on. A little bit of oregano, I think could be really nice. Pepper. Give that a little mixy mix. Oh, that smells good already. And then we'll add some tinned tomatoes. So you just whack everything in. Anything you can find just goes in with the mince. And then you can heat it up the next day. So today we're going to have it with some pasta, some tagliatelle. And then tomorrow we're going to heat it up and have it with some rice. And I might throw in some, should I throw some butter beans in as well? I think I should. Yeah, I've got some of these old bean company butter beans. These are absolutely ginormous and they are so good. They are worth the hype. If you've seen the hype about these, they are genuinely so, so good. They're absolutely ginormous and they are so tasty. And then here's our mince concoction. There's no denying it is very, very simple, but it is really, really delicious. And like I say, you can just sort of throw in whatever you've got in your fridge. And I've got plenty of leftovers for tomorrow. Delicious. Good morning. The kitchen is a mess and I've just got home from the allotment plot. So I'm very sweaty and I need to go and change. But I thought I'd let you know that today we are heading out to Richmond again. And we're actually going to get a boat this time from Richmond to Hampton. And we're going to have a little look around Hampton Court Palace and all the grounds around there. So I thought I would take you with me again. I know we're going back to Richmond, but when we went the first time, it was just my husband and I. And now we're going to take the kids as well and show them the river and hopefully get on a boat. And if you want to get a boat down the river, you have to book. And during the summer holidays, as you can imagine, it is very, very busy. So it's really important to book ahead. Never got the boat down the Thames before. So I thought, let's do it. And I will bring you with me. So let's go. Right. We are back from Richmond. It was a really nice day out. It's very, very hot today and sweaty. But you know what today is as well? It's the eclipse. So we have come out tonight to our favourite park, Nonsuch Park, and we're going to sit down and have a picnic dinner and see the eclipse. Wow. Look at that light. Genuinely looks like autumn at the moment. That's it. Lovely. This is what I picked up for dinner tonight. A rainbow salmon poke bowl, which looks really nice. And then I've, where's my Milky Way? There's my Milky Way for dessert. Right. I'm going to make this pinhole thing so that we can see the eclipse because we did not get any glasses. So make sure that's actually made a hole. Right. Let's go see if this works. So what we do is we have this paper here like this, and then we hold that over the top so that we can see the dot. There it is. That's the eclipse happening. It doesn't really look like it's doing anything yet. Oh yeah. It's starting to cover. It's starting to cover. There's like a quarter. There's like a quarter of it covering. That's so crazy. Park is getting pretty busy. Everybody's turning up to see it. I'll show you where we are now. That is where we are. Is that focusing on it? There's two little moons. Oh, there it is. Yeah. That's where we are. That's so crazy. This will definitely not come out on camera, but it's starting to get dark. Right. We've got about 15 holes here. Um, we were just experimenting with it, but look at all of those. So exciting. It is just, I just can't tell you the feeling of this. It's so eerie. It's just so weird. The sky is just so blue. It's just so weird. It's just such a weird experience. You can just see the world getting darker and darker. It's so weird. Someone very kind gave us their glasses. So we actually got to see the eclipse through the glasses, which was so, so nice of them. And it looks incredible through this. In fact, I should have put it over the camera lens. I didn't think, sorry guys. Um, but yeah, so we did actually get to see the eclipse. That was amazing. There it is. Oh my gosh. My kids leave stuff in the most random places. I was just asking, where's the sun cream? And it's in the bath. I'm actually going to end the vlog here because yesterday something happened. I did put up a YouTube short about this in the week. Um, I completely lost track of the day, so I can't remember what day it was that that went up. Is it really echoey in here? Sorry about that. Hopefully you can still understand me. Um, but yeah, I went down to my allotment and basically someone's been on my plot again. They removed my fountain from the pond. Don't know why. Um, and also they've stolen some of my netting. They've actually opened it up, cut it, um, and then rolled it up and put a rubber band around it. So it's very obvious that somebody has literally stolen it and just taken what they need. You'll see that video next Friday. Um, because I filmed three videos in advance for this week, but it feels weird, like not acknowledging it now because it literally happened yesterday. I was so upset. So you're going to see that in next Friday's vlog, and it's going to seem very dramatic. I filmed it in the moment. And I, you know, one of the things that I love about this channel, and I think a lot of you guys like, is that I'm very honest and I'm very in the moment. And if I'm feeling a certain way or if something happens, I don't hide it. I just put it all out there. You know, the ups, the downs, um, the successes, the failures, the times when I'm upset, I just put it all out there. And, um, I'm very sort of just honest about allotment life. And in Friday's blog, I get very, very upset with my allotment plot. And, um, I think I'm still feeling upset and annoyed at it. It's so hard when somebody sort of takes something from your plot because it kind of like makes you feel like it's not yours anymore. You feel like it's just a free for all, anyone can walk on it. It's just so violating and so upsetting. Obviously I am in the process of moving house. And if we do get a big enough garden, uh, I will genuinely seriously be considering moving my allotment to the back of my garden. And I do not say that lightly. My entire brand has been built on having an allotment garden. I think it may just have to change to being an allotment garden in the back of my home garden. It's just made me feel really, really upset, but I wanted to put it into this blog because it's literally just happened, but I filmed the blog and it's not going up till Friday. I have posted about it on social media and had so much support and it really helps to share this stuff because I get so many other plot holders telling me about their experiences and it makes me feel less alone. It doesn't make it right. And it doesn't make me, it doesn't make the situation better, but it's so nice to know that I'm not alone and that other people are experiencing this. I think it's just one of those things where something really crap has happened, but then other people have also experienced this. And so I kind of just feel like we're kind of in it together. I don't know how to explain that, but it's so nice to have the support and the understanding of people as well. And it's also so heartbreaking to hear so many stories of, you know, allotment plots that have been broken into. It is so heartbreaking. It really is. I can't tell you how much it upsets me every time it happens. It's not the first time. It's happened many, many times and I'm sort of getting to the end of my tether with it because I feel like I put so much into it to have it just trashed like that. It's just like, I just can't, I don't know how much more of it I can honestly take. And that's how, that's where I am right now. So there will be three videos this week and that video goes up on Friday and then I will be back at the allotment on the following Monday to follow up with what's happened to it and stuff. I don't know. I just wanted to give you a heads up for Friday's video basically, because it's going to be a bit of a stressful one, a stressful watch, but one that I would definitely urge every allotment plot holder, if you are on the waiting list for an allotment plot, or if you are frustrated about not having your allotment plot yet, watch Friday's video. Please watch Friday's video because I think it's so important that people see this side of allotmenting, a side that is just not spoken about enough online to be honest, the crap side of it basically. I think we need to just be honest. You can still love it and I'm probably going to do a full circle soon and be like, I love my allotment plot again. You can love it and you can also experience these real, real lows. That's allotment life I'm afraid. It shouldn't be, but it is. Anyway, sorry for the echoey. I can't believe how echoey my bathroom is. What is going on? I hope you've enjoyed this week's vlog. I'm going to be back next Sunday, hopefully with a vlog. That should be quite special and quite fun, but we'll see. We'll see how we go. I will see you when I see you. Thank you so much for watching and thank you so much for your ongoing support. You guys mean the world, honestly. Thank you, thank you, thank you. See you next time. Bye.