Barnsbury on a saturday morning

I live in a little bit of Islington called Barnsbury, it's the west side of Upper Street towards Kings Cross and Camden. I'm at the south end and Kings Cross is a short walk west along the canal. If you're a northerner like me, this means it's walkable to the train to friends and family back home which is ideal.

I bought here at a time when the canal walk to Kings Cross didn't greet you with The Lighterman, Granary Square, and And Other Stories, and so I could grab a little bit of space to call my own. I love it and whilst I complain about no garden and no spare beds etc, I am so lucky to have found a community in this village within the Big Smog.

So here I am, starting my Saturday from this little place. I've been for a swim at Camden Council's Pancras Square pool and I've come home to some Café Direct Organic Fairtrade Machu Picchu coffee and a Pastel de Nata I picked up from Galeta's stall at the Real Food Market at Kings Cross yesterday. 

I drink lots of different types of coffee, but Café Direct was the first fairtrade certified coffee in the UK and they don't stop their work with a certification, so I like to keep buying from them. That little mug I picked up in the Design Museum gift shop in Copenhagen a couple of years ago, thinking it would be a gift to my part-Danish ex-boyfriend but since we never survived my return from the holiday, I kept it and love it so much! It's by Studio Arhoj and on finding the link for this post I've realised it's stocked in Islington at Twentytwentyone! The Denby has sentimental stories as my family all bought bits for me in waves when I was starting to build my nest solo, so my crockery doesn't match but I love it all. And that's a terrible cafétiere; I don't know who thought metal ones were a good idea, they scrape every time you plunge and it kills the coffee moment.