Garden is Suffering in near Drought Conditions - Hosepipe Ban for London from Thursday.

[00:00:01]Morning, Sunday morning, and as you can see, I've got my little summer hoodie on.

[00:00:08]I've also got my leisure pants on, and my socks and slippers, because it's bloody cold.

[00:00:17]Thank goodness the heat has gone. It's well and truly gone, and we're back [clears throat] to the usual UK temperatures.

[00:00:25]So, for those of you not in the UK, the usual way of things in summer is warm days, usually warm afternoons, cool evenings and cool mornings. Usually, it never really gets hot hot, but of course this year is a yeah, a heatwave year, and it looks as though that is going to be more regular for us now, which is unfortunate, because yeah, it's horrid. Hate hate that kind of heat, I really do. But yes, we're back to normal temperatures. So, rewind to yesterday, quite a busy day.

[00:01:06]We were due to go over to our friends in the evening, which we did, and I made a scotch egg in the afternoon to take with us, which was divine. So, it was kind of a busy afternoon doing that. I'm doing crochet at the moment. I'm doing scarves. You might have seen some glimpses of those on social media. I'm a bit bunged up as well this morning. I think it's fairly high pollen at the moment, but it is breezy. The sun is out, and it's a beautiful morning, it really is, but just very cool.

[00:01:39]>> [laughter] >> How marvelous, how lovely to be back to normal. This is how I like it. Anything else to report?

[00:01:48]No, it has been fairly busy with the crochet, just getting on with stuff, but we did have a lovely evening last night, and um our French friends are going back home today. So, we said goodbye to them.

[00:02:03]Um it was a pleasure to spend time with them. And it's interesting because a couple of them don't really speak much English at all. So, we kind of have to get by. My French is not very good in terms of spoken French. I'm kind of okay at reading and writing French. Um but yeah, spoken I don't really have the confidence, but I do know a lot of words and I do know a few of the verbs.

[00:02:29]So, I'm kind of able to get by, you know? And of course, you know, you're using expression. There's all those other things that come into play when you don't know the language. So, it's it's really interesting. And I said to Paul this morning, I'd really like to try and improve my French. I did actually have private French lessons for a year sometime ago. So, I've got all the books already, but for me it's the the speaking and the listening. Those are the difficult things for me. And I I don't really have aptitude in terms of foreign languages.

[00:03:06]It's not my thing. One could always improve. So, this morning, like I said, crochet, I've got a wash on, probably hear it spinning in the background, and a few bits of housework. That's it. So, I'm going to say ta-ta for now. See you later. So, it's 19.8 outside and 20.3 inside.

[00:03:28]And it's 8:39 in the morning. Pressure is going up.

[00:03:34]>> [sighs] >> Yeah.

[00:03:35]40% humidity, but yeah, that's a big change in temperature.

[00:03:42]It's Monday morning. It is 25 past 6:00.

[00:03:47]24 past to be precise.

[00:03:50]This is a great example of how our houses hold on to heat.

[00:03:58]So, the top temperature is 12.7. That is the temperature outside.

[00:04:06]And the temperature inside is 20°.

[00:04:09]So, these houses are designed to hold on to heat. But, of course, in the winter, they require constant topping up of heat in order to stay warm. But, if you can't do that, then obviously over time, the the bricks and the blocks, which are used to construct these Victorian houses, there's no air gap between them, cool down and can't be reheated during the winter because of the cold weather.

[00:04:39]That's kind of how our houses kind of do heat up and do retain heat in the summer, which is not ideal.

[00:04:49]Um but, do cool down in the winter if not reheated by central heating. So, I think that shows it illustrates really well how we're just not equipped in the UK in these houses for heat waves.

[00:05:08]It just heats up and heats up and stays warm. Anyway, I just got up, but I saw that low temperature and thought I must just capture that. I'll see you later.

[00:05:21]It's Tuesday morning. I should be gardening, but instead I'm doing this.

[00:05:29]I just had to learn something new and challenge myself a little bit. So, I did. And it's another Olga Poltava pattern. I love her channel and I love her tutorials.

[00:05:41]I love her patterns.

[00:05:44]I just think she's so creative and so experienced um and such a good teacher.

[00:05:50]So uh yeah, I thought I'd get on with that. It is overcast this morning.

[00:05:55]Um like I said earlier, I should be out gardening, doing stuff in the in the backyard, but yeah, no.

[00:06:04]>> [laughter] >> Basically, I'm still crocheting because I've got to come up with new ideas for some new products. So, the scarves are in the shop now. Did that yesterday.

[00:06:15]I've also made um Canada one of our destination um shipping countries. So, it's UK and Canada now. And I also reduced a couple of prices, too. So, head over to the shop and have a look. Yeah, overcast uh feeling like normal summer temperatures, so around I think 24, something like that, which is perfect for me. I'm just getting on with stuff. I do need to do some housework this afternoon. That's on my list of things. The place really needs a good vacuum. Nothing else to report. I'll see you later.

[00:06:51]Good afternoon. It is Wednesday, and we've just had lunch. So, I'm just letting my lunch go down, but I have spent the morning in the garden doing a sort of major tidy up of the borders um and some of the shrubs. We're now in drought conditions. So, everything is suffering. We've got a hose pipe ban in place from tomorrow. So, the garden effectively can't be watered properly.

[00:07:25]We've only got a few pots, and they're all dying as well. Things are struggling, really struggling. Um so, I just thought seize this opportunity to cut things back, shape up some of the bushes, and cut back some of the trees. There are are quite a few things that I'm not going to be able to do in terms of >> [snorts] >> taking control of some of the larger trees. We're going to have to get a tree person in to do that, especially with the enormous bay tree, which has completely got out of control. I can't quite believe it. So, yeah, I've done a huge amount this morning. So, what I'm going to do is in order to free up truck space, I'm going to bag up some stuff and put it by the green waste bin because the green waste bin is now full.

[00:08:16]I actually filled 1 2 3 4 5 6, about eight loads, eight bags full. And I haven't done a before and after because I'm kind of in the middle of it now. If I'd have stopped to set up camera this morning, I probably wouldn't have even got started. I just needed to immediately get into the flow of it and just get the work done. My body aches already, my legs ache, but let me show you the work in progress. So, I started by cutting back some of the grapevine which was coming over this fence. Cleared some of the dead ferns because they're suffering in the heat. It's a couple of trucks there that are full.

[00:09:00]There's a lot of palm tree leaves.

[00:09:04]As you can see, I'm still in the middle of it at the moment.

[00:09:08]So, I've cut back this cherry here.

[00:09:12]I've also cut back the magnolia.

[00:09:16]I've also started to shape up the olive here. These bushes behind, I've cut those back as well.

[00:09:27]Just in the middle of shaping up this olive. That needs to be shaped up. I've cut back this bay here, but this is the monster.

[00:09:39]Absolute monster of a bay tree, which is blocking out a lot of light.

[00:09:44]It's going to have to be a professional that does that.

[00:09:48]So, I cut back this hazel here, and this hazel here, started shaping up this ceanothus.

[00:09:57]I've yet to rake all these leaves. Look, they make such a mess, these palm trees.

[00:10:02]They really do. I've been cutting back some of this cherry as well, which is uh quite sort of uh low-hanging now, but it's so pretty. Don't really want to cut too much of it. The white roses are flowering again, which is lovely.

[00:10:23]And this afternoon, I want to start tackling the back of the garden.

[00:10:30]Everything's so dry.

[00:10:33]So, this has become terribly overgrown.

[00:10:37]Terribly overgrown. There's a lot of ivy, ground ivy, which needs to be pulled, and these shrubs need to be shaped up, because they're getting out of hand. And there's a lot of ivy on the fences.

[00:10:53]And there's also, behind that palm tree, there is a choisya, which probably needs some attention. So, yeah, it's uh it has been allowed to get out of control, which is very naughty, but that's the way it goes when you've got other things in your life. I cut this hazel back as well, and I also started shaping up this little bush here.

[00:11:17]There's lots more to do, so I will film myself for some of it, um just to show you me pottering around in the garden.

[00:11:27]It's all very exciting.

[00:15:22]>> I got some fun stuff.

[00:15:43]>> That's you too much.

[00:16:17]So, it's 4:00. I'm calling it a day, um, because I've sort of slowed down. My back is starting to complain.

[00:16:27]And, uh, I'm I'm moving noticeably slowly.

[00:16:32]Um, also because it's very hot, basically.

[00:16:37]The heat is bearing down. The sun is full out now.

[00:16:42]Not like the, uh, haze that we had earlier today.

[00:16:47]And on top of that, there are a group of very noisy children playing in a paddling pool.

[00:16:53]Daddy is clearly in charge because things keep happening and the little one keeps crying. So, I don't think Daddy's looking out for them very well.

[00:17:04]It's like happened three times. He keeps saying, "Careful." Well, that's not good enough, Daddy.

[00:17:10]No.

[00:17:13]So, there's more to do. It's looking better, even though it's still a mess, Yeah, and I'm glad I've done it, but I really do need a bath now.

[00:17:25]And a cold drink.

[00:17:27]So, uh I'm going to conclude for this week.

[00:17:32]And uh yeah, I'll say ta-ta.

[00:17:35]And I'll see you very soon. Bye for now.

[00:17:37]Thanks for watching.