We were so pooped when we reached Inverness, we decided to stay the next day and not move on until the following day. Our first port of call was Leakey's Bookshop and cafe. This is an amazing place, an old church converted into a bookshop, with over 100,000 books in it! You can see the history below.
This is taken from the cafe in the gallery, looking down on the stacks.
The sides of the galleries have old maps and Victorian prints for sale. The pulpit is where the owner checks books and does business away from the public.
The building is heated by and absolutely immense wood burning stove. The flue can be seen in some of the photos, going up through the ceiling.
The cloth covered pile and the boxes in this picture are books waiting to be sorted and priced.
The spiral staircase leading to the cafe and galleries. A glimpse of the owner at the cash desk. The service here is so friendly and welcoming (and the cakes are good too!)
We continued our journey the next day. The roads were really good, but we could not get up to the ferry at 1.30pm. We missed it, so we had a break and got the later one at 6.30pm.
Because we missed the lunch time ferry, we had to stay overnight on Orkney Mainland. The Sanday ferry had left at 3.20pm. The roads on OM were really bad. We saw a lorry trapped gong up a hill, and we had one bad skid.We could not go back home on the early ferry. We had one sad task to perform. During our visit away, we got a phonecall from the person who was caring for our animals to say that our cat had broken its leg and had to be sent over to the vet. We spoke to the vet, but she recommended we put the cat down. We saw the vet and paid our bill.
We got home just after five, after a calm crossing. I can honestly say I was never so glad to get home! We have both been sitting, doing nothing, for the past two days and it has been wonderful! Hope you are all warm and cosy wherever you are!
Till next time.
tich
