Dianne Tanner

That have been happening.
Picking wildflowers, eating this seasons asparagus, processing film, drying lavender, welcoming the sun.

Welcome, gentle readers, to the Crouch End Coffee Tour.

This is something I have joked with friends about starting pretty much every time a new coffee place opens in Crouch End. One shop opens, the next week its a coffee place. You can't swing a cat in Crouch End (a quiet, refined suburb of North London, for those of you not of these shores) without hitting a coffee shop filled with push chairs, cake and cool kids with specs on carrying a camera and/or a Flashback Records tote bag. I thought it was about time someone dedicated some time to doing a tour of all of them. So here we are.

One rainy Sunday Matthew and I thought we would try out the Blue Legume that had opened at the top of the village, which seemed like a perfect excuse to start this tour. I've never been to a Blue Legume before (I believe they have other branches in nice places like Islington) but heard good things. Mostly from their website which Suzi and I looked up when we saw they had opened and said to one another 'oh how novel a coffee shop in Crouch End!'

It was rammed and there was a queue of people looking irritated that the tables were all full - it was pouring with rain outside - but my eggs royale was superb - Matt was a bit disappointed to get hashbrowns out of a bag rather than home made on his 'Hash Brown Stack' (2 hashbrowns on eggs?). The coffee was ok? It came in those tiny cups with handles so small you can't hold them. I hate nonfunctional coffee cups. Five demerits to the Blue Legume for nonfunctional coffee cups.

Expect more thrilling accounts such as this to roll in as the weeks go by.

Zurich rather unexpectedly has one of the best Natural History Museums I've ever been to.

I spent most of the time drinking beer beside the river/lake and reading the Hunger Games. Don't judge me.

Just another day in the Rocky Mountains.

On a rainy walk from Crouch End to Highgate, I noticed all of the purples on offer.

You guys I was in this room for the better part of an hour. I'm pretty sure boyface fell asleep on a couch while I was drooling over the earth's bounty on show at the American Museum of Natural History that day.

American Museum of Natural History, New York through the lens of my beloved Yashica.

I really feel like under exposed as all hell is working here for me. I love the faded colours, a nice surprise considering I really didn't expect any of these photos to come out. Yashica delivers again. I'm going to make out with that guy now BRB.

I've been musing over the idea of opening a secondary store forr photo prints. Is this something anyone is interested in? I just can't decide.

A very long time ago my good friend Sarah and I discussed starting some kind of photography project together. We both shoot in very different styles, and thought it would be fun to do a film swap. She shot a roll of film in Sept/Oct last year, then gave the film to me to shoot over. We are both rather chuffed with the results!

We're going to make it a regular thing. Its really interesting seeing what comes out - we both shoot on totally different cameras (she is more of a lomo girl, I'm SLR all the way). I love Sarah's photographs, she captures stark, man made, symmetrical structures in such an interesting way, with so much thought and purpose - I took a day trip to Hackney City Farm and the Columbia Road Flower Market to try and contrast this with a bit of ny usual haphazard way of capturing life in action. Its an interesting contrast (and it was loads of fun!).

I'm thinking about getting prints of some of these I love them so much.
You can check out the full set HERE and Sarah on Flickr HERE.

When I was small, my Grandad would make me hot lemon barley whenever I felt a bit sick. He'd make it from concentrate - but I recently found a recipe somewhere on the internet for making it from scratch (something which had never even occurred to me as possible before) and I have been making and enjoying jars of it pretty much every day since. I thought I would share this because its so ridiculously easy I can't even believe it. Also, for once in my life it was actually light in my kitchen while I'm making it so I can take photographs.

First up you need some pearl barley. This is 49p a bag from Waitrose and I pretty much live on the stuff. The barley water is the natural by-product of the barley cooking process which is nice. Once you have cooked your pearl barley to enjoy for your lunch/dinner (boil for about 20minutes bish bosh bash) strain the water into a receptacle and leave it to stand for a while - I generally leave it overnight. This allows the grim slimy part (GSP) to separate. I'm sure there is nothing wrong with this part in fact I only started letting it separate recently, so its not necessary to allow it to stand - I just don't like the sediment. You can see it lurking at the bottom of the jug up there. Let it settle to the bottom and pour the good stuff out. Bin the GSP.

So then you want to pour your barley water into a jar or something. Get some lemons and some honey. You can see this all happening in the picture above - I'm sure I didn't need to explain it. From 1 cup of barley you should get half/ three quarters of a pasta jar of barley water. I tend to then top the jar up so its almost full, its nicer a bit watered down (I personally don't like it to taste too much like barley it can be a bit odd - which is why I like to filter out the GSP)

Whack in some lemon juice. I use 2 lemons because I like it quite tart.You didn't need a picture for this either.

Add as much honey as you like to sweeten it a bit. I put in the amount above. I couldn't tell you how much that is because I just squidge it in. But doesn't it look pretty all settled at the bottom?

You don't have to add honey, using oranges instead of/as well as lemons also works. I tend to just use whatever citrus I have in. Make sure when you are taking photos of you putting the honey in that you are not looking through your camera at the jar because honey will go everywhere except into the jar. Its a bit sticky in my kitchen just now.

Put lid on jar. Shake jar until honey and liquid merge. Put in the fridge. Presto. Pretty much the easiest thing I've ever made and means no waste from barley cooking. Genius. I keep mine in a jar so I can take it to work with me, where people often assume I am drinking a urine sample. Oh what japes!

Also happening in my kitchen -
A bowl of yeast is bubbling away waiting to be turned into cake and yes, I'm making almond milk. Isn't everyone?

I just walked into a very unassuming church basement bookstore in Crouch End to find these 3 glorious editions of Ponting's Scott's Last Voyage, Evans' South with Scott, and Scott's journals in a wonderfully bound edition full of photographs and maps.

I really recommend checking out the bookstore under St Mary's Parish Church inbetween Crouch End and Muswell Hill. They had a flood recently and are looking for donations to replace ruined stock.

I think its fair to say my Scott Bookshelf is pretty glad these beauties were saved from said flood.

(they also had a bunch of Buffy books and I got an amazing book about Witchcraft and Demonology. What I thought was going to be an amazing goth bookhaul turned into an amazing Polar bookhaul. Day of book win!)

I'll be in Little Paris from 7pm selling lots of pretty things. Come down if you are in the 'hood. If you are not, come down to the 'hood, and then come to Little Paris.

Some things I picked up in Texas, 'lil gator and Gonzales flag.
I have no luck with lavender it seems. Is it dying? I just don't know.
Its nice to have Ben home. I forgot how pretty he is!
I wanted to read All the Pretty Horses for so long, and I really loved it.

Houston & New Orleans times.

Baby gators, "the strongest drink in New Orleans", Narwhal thumb-war, Pentagram tattoos that didn't happen, Game of Phones, tacos for breakfast, Po-boys, getting to spend time with 2 of my favourite people that I only ever get to see once every 2 years for one weekend at a time....

Dream-Springtime. Heath roaming, feather collecting, birdwatching.
[deargolden / myselvagedlife / thewhiteribbon ]

Its a bit of a shame Pintrest seems to have lost the original sources for these pictures I pinned an awfully long time ago, and once again noticed the accidental symmetary that formed on my pinboard.

(bottom left, the rest unknown)

Going back to Fort Collins is now a bit like when I go back to see my own folks, a bit same oldy but something magical happens every time. This time we saw Elks on the way down from the Rocky Mountain National Park, found a secret shrine, I read a lot in the sunshine (the fantastic biography of Kathleen Scott - which has filled me with inspiration to try harder to be happy and enjoy life) we ate lunch in what is apparently a beaver haven (no beavers were seen) and I had a lucky day of thrifting.

Yes, I really love my vintage Broncos tee.

Loves&
Pretties.

In the absence of my digital camera I seem to have gone over board on Instagram on my hols, this is stage 1 - New York!

Hellz yeh I found Ned Stark's head in New York City!

Other highlights of this wonderful city include the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, spring blossoms, singing the Friends incidental music everytime we turned a corner, the American Museum of Natural History (blatently getting its own post) and Shake Shack.

NYC > CO > TX > N'awlins > CO

The swing of things for the month of March.

Couldn't resist doing some people watching at Beat the Retreat - pipes and Naval uniforms get me every time.

So I couldn't blag tickets to the St Pauls Scott Memorial last Thursday, but did bunk the afternoon off of work to see the Royal Marines Beat the Retreat down at Waterloo Place right in front of the Scott Memorial statue, which was quite a sight to behold. It was nice to see lots of people (most of whom were in their finery after the St Pauls service) gathering to pay tribute to the Captain. Everyone was so friendly, Suzi counted 3 Polar Medals, and then we went to the pub.

Yes that man with the drum is wearing a tiger.

And at the perfect moment as the band finished, this happened.

Just some idle shots from around the house lately.

  'After all, it is the work that counts, not the applause that follows'