Old books, Cake, and animal selfies

Today started out quite mundane in that I had an appointment at the hairdressers - it's a wonder I don't come out with a very strange haircut as I always fall asleep when I'm getting my hair cut and blow dryed. Hayley. my hairdresser, has to wake me up regularly so that she can make sure that everything is even. It must be something about this salon as it's never happened to me before.

After the haircut it was off to Nourish, the vegetarian cafe for coffee and cake - well, it would have been rude not to have some. I love how they use mismatched retro crockery.

We then went to Leakey's secondhand bookshop to explore. Leakey's is in an old Gaelic Church and has over 100,000 books, so the temptation is just to stay there all day. It's like something out of a bygone era and even has an open fire in the middle of the building - slightly strange thing to have in a place that is full of ready kindling.

I love how there are books stacked everywhere - I'd love to have a library like this in my home. Walls of books and piles of books for all the ones that I'm waiting to read. Of course there would be cats in amongst all the books (yes, I know I'm very close to being a crazy cat lady).

Look what I found in one of the alcoves - some fellow Australians a little way from home.

I love when you open an old book and find an inscription written from the giver to the receiver. This one was in a copy of Little Men by Louisa May Alcott - I hope Betty loved this book as much as I did when I read it as a young girl.

Upstairs I found these bound copies of the magazine Punch - most of which were published in the late 1800's. Punch was a satirical and humorous magazine published in Britain from 1841 until 2002.

There are literally books and documents everywhere you look..

Upstairs there are also a few chairs and couches dotted throughout the stacks so that you can sit and read for a while. You can see the beautiful church window in the background.

A couple more inscriptions that I liked - the first on in this book that is over a 110 years old.

Obviously very creative people as I love how they've made their initials look so pretty, and it makes me wonder what their life was like in 1906, and who they were.

The next inscription was in this book of poetry about children, so I wonder if Margaret was still a young child, or maybe she was pregnent with her first child and her mother decided to give her this book in honour of that occasion.

Here's a few more shots showing you around the building - did I mention that it's the largest secondhand bookshop in Scotland.

Gorgeous man lurking amongst the books.

This is looking into part of the building where they keep books that are yet to go out for sale - I'd love to be let loose in there for a few days.

In the time that we had I didn't find any cat books that I don't already have (remember, crazy cat lady in training) but Ken found this book and of course I had to get it. It's all about the carvings on medieval churches that have a sexual meaning or implication - very interesting. It will go well with another book we already had, called landscapes of desire.

So that was our time spent in Leakey's - I would definitely recommend you visit if you're ever in the area, even if you're not a bibliophile, as it's a fascinating building.

To finish of I thought I'd share with you mine and Ken's attempts at selfies with the brats - Bramble Jelly looks happier than Cookie Cat to be in a photograph.

That's it for today, until next time, be good, stay safe, and spend time with a favourite book that you've maybe not looked at for a while.

Pamela & Ken
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P.S: I had to share this next photo, it's one of Ken's attempts at a selfie and I think it's adorable (I know, I may be a little biased).