Ah, The Antiquarian Bookshops Of Olde England (and Elsewhere)!
Rochester...Brighton...Southampton...Carnforth...
But they probably aren't as much Fun now - hence perhaps the Dreams - if you can't actually handle the books, put them back, pick up some more etc. etc.
I was in a second hand bookshop, which had been created from two or three single story old houses in a row. Inside was a maze of rooms, with a step or two going up or down between rooms. The doors were low - fine for me at 5ft 5, but tall people were having to duck. There was a light and airy cafe extension at the back.
I grew up with just such a bookshop, although sans cafe. I used to love it. I still love wandering among bookshelves. It is a matter of great horror for me that, during a recent refurbishment, our local library got rid of the majority of their books. It's now an airy space full of computer desks and "co-working spaces", with a few bookshelves at the sides, and much that was worthy of preservation has vanished.
@North East Quine - having wandered the Wigtown bookshops (those which were open, at least) just last week it could easily be an amalgamation of them all!
I was remarkably restrained and only bought two books which were by authors whose books I already had. I was also only an hour in total, rather than the whole day I could have taken if I had felt able to pick up books and browse. But I did talk to the staff far more than usual if the shop was empty.
Hmmm I never got to explore Aberdeen’s bookshops before lockdown either.
Mr Alba helpfully bought back a postcard from one, something about beans.....?
"Books and Beans" on Belmont Street, not far from the Art Gallery. I can recommend it; it's one of my favourite places for soup or coffee.
We had a mini-Shipmeet there, eight or ten years ago, and I've met up with another Shipmate there since.
Other Aberdeen bookshops include Waterstones in the Bon-Accord Centre, the Oxfam bookshop in Back Wynd, and Blackwells on the Aberdeen University campus in Old Aberdeen. I love them all!
There's a Christian bookshop in the Academy Shopping Centre, but I have yet to be tempted by a book there; I tend to go there for novelty Christian pencils for the Sunday School. If you want a twee text on a mug, or a photoframe, it has a wide selection.
There's a Christian bookshop in the Academy Shopping Centre, but I have yet to be tempted by a book there; I tend to go there for novelty Christian pencils for the Sunday School. If you want a twee text on a mug, or a photoframe, it has a wide selection.
Christian bookshops do tend to be treasure troves if you're on the hunt for Junk for Jehovah.
Books and Beans, the Oxfam bookshop, the Christian book shop and Waterstones are all within 5 / 10 minutes walk of each other, and of the Art Gallery. Lots of coffee options in that area, too.
Blackwells, on Old Aberdeen High Street, is trickier to get to (most on-campus parking is permit only), but it's close to the Sir Duncan Rice library, so I tend to pop in if I'm at the library. Blackwells carries a lot of textbooks, of course, and some rather tempting stationery, if you like that sort of thing.
I forgot to mention the second hand bookshop on the Spital; I can't remember what it's called.
I had a very vivid, realistic, dream last night, which felt as though I was in somewhere familiar.
I was in a second hand bookshop, which had been created from two or three single story old houses in a row. Inside was a maze of rooms, with a step or two going up or down between rooms. The doors were low - fine for me at 5ft 5, but tall people were having to duck. There was a light and airy cafe extension at the back.
Nothing happened in the dream, I just wandered round, then had soup, cake (lemon drizzle) and coffee in the cafe with my family.
Does anyone recognise this bookshop? We were in Wigtown a few years ago, so it might have been there.
(My husband thinks I've created a mash-up of several different places.)
I wonder if Mr B is employing some sort of occult force, to send out Dreams to those sympathetic persons he would like to see in his shop as RL Customers?
And now we get the rule of six as well. So having just this morning set up an outdoor small farewell gathering for a family leaving the village, I will now have to cancel it. I don't really mind, and i am glad worship services were exempted and that funerals and wedding rules remain the same.
I have just taken a funeral in an unfamiliar cemetery (Pitlochry) where the deceased, who ended life in a care home almost next door to me, used to live. The undertaker - again a new one to me, was shocked, not by anything I did (!) but because during the 20 minute graveside service three separate parties of people came to look around what is quite a small cemetery, and did not lower their voices although it was more than obvious what we were doing. In Pitlochry you can blame it on the tourists, though I take off my virtual hat to an y tourist who found that cemetery, so badly signed and well-hidden is it!
Open grave - minister in (presumably) appropriate vesture - sad-faced people in Best Clothes - flowers (?) - undertaker and staff standing by - also black cars and empty hearse - what else could be needed to make it blindingly obvious to anyone above the IQ of a Bed-Bug that a FUNERAL was taking place?
Where did those tourists come from, I wonder? Maybe the Deceased Person could be given some time off from The Beatific Vision in order to go and jolly well haunt them...
Even without there being a funeral taking place, isn't it normal to lower your voices in a cemetery (should there be a need to say anything) out of respect?
Oh please, this was noting compared to the time we exited the church and found that tourists were taking pictures of the coffin and the family. (I stopped them!). For me that was a weird one off, but I gather in @Piglet’s beloved St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall it is getting to be not unusual when the cruise ships are in.
St Magnus could make a point of having the Minister, at such a funeral surrounded by gawping idiots, declaim loudly from Job 19 v26 (or kindred verses):
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God... (KJV, I think)
A not-so-gentle reminder that our cruise through this life comes to an end eventually, for all of us.
Even without there being a funeral taking place, isn't it normal to lower your voices in a cemetery (should there be a need to say anything) out of respect?
Not so much here. You need to shout to be heard over the wind.
Not so much here. You need to shout to be heard over the wind.
That could easily apply in Kirkwall too.
I suppose the lack of disrespectful tourists could be seen as a tiny silver lining of the Plague ...
There's a small but quite vocal minority in Orkney that rails against the disruption caused by cruise ships*, but they are an essential part of the islands' economy, and their absence this summer will have devastated some of the local businesses.
* if you get three big ones on the same day, it can temporarily double Kirkwall's population.
Oh please, this was noting compared to the time we exited the church and found that tourists were taking pictures of the coffin and the family.
Is showing some bloody respect really that difficult?
</curmudgeon>
There is a certain type of tourist who can't quite comprehend that the places they go on holiday are home to actual people with real lives rather than picturesque historical and cultural exhibits.
I remember some tourists gathering to look at the quaint sight of a local teeing off on Bruntsfield Links. It took some hard glaring to alert them I was not An Exhibit.
I used to volunteer as a tour guide in the Cathedral in St. John's, and was frequently asked if services were still held there. People were somewhat surprised when I said, yes - 23 every week.
There's a small but quite vocal minority in Orkney that rails against the disruption caused by cruise ships*, but they are an essential part of the islands' economy, and their absence this summer will have devastated some of the local businesses.
It's a sodding nuisance trying to shop when there's one in, but the sheer number of people must add up to a lot of cash even if only a few spend megabucks.
When we were on Orkney, we visited the sites in the gaps between bus loads of cruise ship tourists (and day trippers from the Scottish mainland). The staff at the sites were very useful, letting us know when the gaps would occur even at different places across the islands. I'd expect the locals to know when they can slip into the shops avoiding the crowds as well. But, probably suitable times for funerals, weddings and the like don't coincide with those gaps in the crowds of tourists.
The thing about really big ships coming in is that you (almost literally) can't move for the crowds. I recall a photo my sister took of Bridge Street (the narrow one that leads from the harbour to the main street) a few years ago when there were (I think) two big ships and a smaller one in, and the crowd filled the entire width of the street.
Now I really want to go there - it's been far too long since I've been.
I understand that when a cruise ship docks in UK, the local charity shops often do good trade as some crew members seek out good value clothes to send home to family in poorer parts of the world
Not so much here. You need to shout to be heard over the wind.
That could easily apply in Kirkwall too.
I suppose the lack of disrespectful tourists could be seen as a tiny silver lining of the Plague ...
There's a small but quite vocal minority in Orkney that rails against the disruption caused by cruise ships*, but they are an essential part of the islands' economy, and their absence this summer will have devastated some of the local businesses.
* if you get three big ones on the same day, it can temporarily double Kirkwall's population.
When did cruise ships become a 'thing' in Orkney? I don't recall seeing any on my one visit (a very long time ago).
Oh please, this was noting compared to the time we exited the church and found that tourists were taking pictures of the coffin and the family.
Is showing some bloody respect really that difficult?
</curmudgeon>
Apologies for the double post. I agree that this type of tourist behaviour is disrespectful and offensive. That said, when my father died last year, I inherited the photo albums, and am translating the captions into English for my niece (reminds me... I have to get back to that), and there are a few funerary photographs. The context, though, is very different, in that my photos would have been taken at the request of the family, and at that time and in that culture, it was sometimes a thing done.
Yes, I was surprised when a divinity student on placement in the YSA that family took pictures of coffins! Just a cultural difference. But they were family, and not doing it at sensitive times in the funereal process.
A couple of years ago I was at a large memorial service in Aberdeen for someone who had had a small, private funeral. The service included footage taken at the graveside - the hearse drawing up, removal of the coffin from the hearse, etc. There was a gap where whoever was filming must have put the camera down in order to take a cord, then filming resumed with earth being scattered on the coffin.
It felt very odd to watch.
All sorts of odd things are done for pastoral reasons. I can see why filming a funeral for those unable to attend would be a very pastoral act, and using that in a memorial service doesn't seem to be inappropriate. Likewise, photographs of the service - which may be one of the few occasions a large family will be together at the same time.
But, videoing or photographing a funeral service for pastoral reasons doesn't relate to tourists doing the same.
When did cruise ships become a 'thing' in Orkney? I don't recall seeing any on my one visit (a very long time ago).
I'd say it's really taken off in the last 15-20 years. We'd get the occasional one before that; around the time I left school (1980) I was taken on a couple of times to act as a translator for German tourists doing the sights (I'd done Higher German at school), but back then they were something of a rarity.
My late father was very interested in the ships that came in (he trained as an engineer at Scott's shipyard in Greenock), and whenever there was a ship in, he'd go down to the harbour and photograph it. When we spoke on the phone when I lived in Newfoundland he'd tell me what was in, and in several cases, the ships that had been in Kirkwall one week would turn up a couple of weeks later in St. John's (assuming they didn't get stuck in an Atlantic hurricane).
Ah, I see. It was 1987 (Good Lord!) that I was there, so before the invasion. I arrived in and departed from Stromness by a P&O ferry. (Into from Aberdeen - longish, but I had a very nice roast beef dinner on board with a delightful pensioner who understood that it would be churlish to refuse my offer of wine. She was en route to visiting a friend of hers whom she met when they were Wrens in WW II.) Do the monstrosities you describe visit Stromness, as well?
If the cruise ships were run by the former British Rail, it would be the case that Stromness had the wrong kind of water...
Cruise ships really are a mixed blessing. I can understand how certain places, whether at home or abroad, benefit economically from their visits, but O! the environmental impact of these monstrous things...
Our former Father F***wit used to take Lovely Wife on 2, or possibly 3, cruises each year, and boasted on his return of the mountains of food they'd 'pigged themselves on' (his words), and the way they'd been waited on hand-and-foot by the servants.
When we observed Sea Sunday, in support of the work of the Mission to Seafarers in helping exploited and underpaid seafarers, including those on cruise ships, the irony was completely lost on Father F...
*ahem*
I do apologise. Rant over. Please, carry on as you were.
My late father was very interested in the ships that came in (he trained as an engineer at Scott's shipyard in Greenock), and whenever there was a ship in, he'd go down to the harbour and photograph it.
A happy remembrance. My grandfather was a blacksmith at Scott's, but that would have been a bit earlier than your father. The smithy building was still there until just a few years ago - I had a strange sense of loss when it was demolished.
Ah! happy days! when Scotland (and England, and NI, for that matter) built Useful Things™ like ships, cranes, steam locomotives etc. etc., and for export, too, not just for home use.
Yes, yes - I know, working conditions (and wages) were often bl**dy awful, but still...that sense of something lost is perfectly understandable...
Cruise ships really are a mixed blessing. I can understand how certain places, whether at home or abroad, benefit economically from their visits
I recall s TV programme which covered the arrival of a large cruise ship at Kirkwall. While jewelry shops etc could make good money, one café owner said that passengers spent ages over a cup of coffee using her free wi-fi, as the ship charged for this. However, they rushed back to the ship at lunchtime as food and drink were all inclusive. In contrast, crew would make for the charity shops to purchase inexpensive clothes to send home to family.
I once met a school classmate in St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. I was quite surprised, although managed to refrain from smacking him in the gob. Our school was about 700 miles away, and neither of us had known that the other was even intending to holiday in Scotland.
Cruise ships really are a mixed blessing. I can understand how certain places, whether at home or abroad, benefit economically from their visits
I recall s TV programme which covered the arrival of a large cruise ship at Kirkwall. While jewelry shops etc could make good money, one café owner said that passengers spent ages over a cup of coffee using her free wi-fi, as the ship charged for this. However, they rushed back to the ship at lunchtime as food and drink were all inclusive. In contrast, crew would make for the charity shops to purchase inexpensive clothes to send home to family.
Fair point. I stand corrected - it's the families of the crew (as well as the charity shops) who benefit...
I only go to Stromness if I absolutely have to ...
The best steak I've ever had was in Stromness.
That wasn't in the Hamnavoe restaurant, was it? In the last few years before we left, it was a very good reason for going to The Other Place. It was run by a barmy Irish lady called Catriona (who inexplicably took a liking to David and me, and used to give us free puddings), and the food was to die for.
No, and now I feel the need to go back to compare them (I've wanted to go back to Orkney for a while anyway, although may trigger depression again so probably not advised)
The Hamnavoe was there in 1987! I also had a very good meal at the Stromness Hotel. Grilled lamb.
@Piglet I prefer Stromness to the hectic pace of Kirkwall
@Sandemaniac At the museum in Stromness I was, as a Canadian, gobsmacked by the number of Canadian, or related to Canada, artifacts it had. The captions explained (and I had been unaware of this) that for many Hudson's Bay Company ships Stromness was the last port of call before heading out across the Atlantic.
I do not exaggerate when I say that Orkney was one of the happiest times of my life. Had I not made arrangements to meet friends on the Continent, I would have stayed a month.
... I prefer Stromness to the hectic pace of Kirkwall
Heretick!
He's right, you know. What with Tesco and St Magnus, and that roundabout, Kirkwall was wild and made my head spin. Stromness is altogether a more relaxed place. I shall be back in Orkney as soon as I possibly can. We only spent a week there in May a few years ago, before the annual cruise ship invasion. I've rarely been so content in my life as for those few days. It was even better than Newfoundland.
I've always liked the community feel, and the fact that you can't go to the supermarket without meeting someone you know. While I'm aware that a feather at one end of the street becomes a feather bed by the time it gets to the other*, it never bothered me that everybody knew everything about everyone else.
When David and I got engaged, there was no need to put an announcement in the weekly paper - it happened on Sunday and by Thursday everybody knew!
* As a dear friend, who was often the subject of local gossip, used to say, "if they're talking about me, they're leaving somebody else alone". He also said if he'd done half the things people said he had, he'd have had a jolly good time ...
For myself I found the bright lights of both Kirkwall and Stromness a bit overwhelming. When I was considering a move about a decade ago it was Sanday and Westray that were my prospective destinations.
Comments
Rochester...Brighton...Southampton...Carnforth...
But they probably aren't as much Fun now - hence perhaps the Dreams - if you can't actually handle the books, put them back, pick up some more etc. etc.
I grew up with just such a bookshop, although sans cafe. I used to love it. I still love wandering among bookshelves. It is a matter of great horror for me that, during a recent refurbishment, our local library got rid of the majority of their books. It's now an airy space full of computer desks and "co-working spaces", with a few bookshelves at the sides, and much that was worthy of preservation has vanished.
Philistines!
Mr Alba helpfully bought back a postcard from one, something about beans.....?
I was remarkably restrained and only bought two books which were by authors whose books I already had. I was also only an hour in total, rather than the whole day I could have taken if I had felt able to pick up books and browse. But I did talk to the staff far more than usual if the shop was empty.
"Books and Beans" on Belmont Street, not far from the Art Gallery. I can recommend it; it's one of my favourite places for soup or coffee.
We had a mini-Shipmeet there, eight or ten years ago, and I've met up with another Shipmate there since.
Other Aberdeen bookshops include Waterstones in the Bon-Accord Centre, the Oxfam bookshop in Back Wynd, and Blackwells on the Aberdeen University campus in Old Aberdeen. I love them all!
There's a Christian bookshop in the Academy Shopping Centre, but I have yet to be tempted by a book there; I tend to go there for novelty Christian pencils for the Sunday School. If you want a twee text on a mug, or a photoframe, it has a wide selection.
During lockdown I have come to realise Just how much I miss actually going into / and dawdling in bookshops / charity shops .
For me anyway........ it is just not at all the same when buying books online.
Clothes for that matter as well
Blackwells, on Old Aberdeen High Street, is trickier to get to (most on-campus parking is permit only), but it's close to the Sir Duncan Rice library, so I tend to pop in if I'm at the library. Blackwells carries a lot of textbooks, of course, and some rather tempting stationery, if you like that sort of thing.
I forgot to mention the second hand bookshop on the Spital; I can't remember what it's called.
Catching up after a few days off... The description sounds like something from Shaun Bythell - have you been reading his books? https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/24/confessions-of-bookseller-shaun-bythell-review
I have just taken a funeral in an unfamiliar cemetery (Pitlochry) where the deceased, who ended life in a care home almost next door to me, used to live. The undertaker - again a new one to me, was shocked, not by anything I did (!) but because during the 20 minute graveside service three separate parties of people came to look around what is quite a small cemetery, and did not lower their voices although it was more than obvious what we were doing. In Pitlochry you can blame it on the tourists, though I take off my virtual hat to an y tourist who found that cemetery, so badly signed and well-hidden is it!
Open grave - minister in (presumably) appropriate vesture - sad-faced people in Best Clothes - flowers (?) - undertaker and staff standing by - also black cars and empty hearse - what else could be needed to make it blindingly obvious to anyone above the IQ of a Bed-Bug that a FUNERAL was taking place?
Where did those tourists come from, I wonder? Maybe the Deceased Person could be given some time off from The Beatific Vision in order to go and jolly well haunt them...
St Magnus could make a point of having the Minister, at such a funeral surrounded by gawping idiots, declaim loudly from Job 19 v26 (or kindred verses):
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God... (KJV, I think)
A not-so-gentle reminder that our cruise through this life comes to an end eventually, for all of us.
Not so much here. You need to shout to be heard over the wind.
I suppose the lack of disrespectful tourists could be seen as a tiny silver lining of the Plague ...
There's a small but quite vocal minority in Orkney that rails against the disruption caused by cruise ships*, but they are an essential part of the islands' economy, and their absence this summer will have devastated some of the local businesses.
* if you get three big ones on the same day, it can temporarily double Kirkwall's population.
Is showing some bloody respect really that difficult?
</curmudgeon>
There is a certain type of tourist who can't quite comprehend that the places they go on holiday are home to actual people with real lives rather than picturesque historical and cultural exhibits.
It's a sodding nuisance trying to shop when there's one in, but the sheer number of people must add up to a lot of cash even if only a few spend megabucks.
AG
Now I really want to go there - it's been far too long since I've been.
When did cruise ships become a 'thing' in Orkney? I don't recall seeing any on my one visit (a very long time ago).
Apologies for the double post. I agree that this type of tourist behaviour is disrespectful and offensive. That said, when my father died last year, I inherited the photo albums, and am translating the captions into English for my niece (reminds me... I have to get back to that), and there are a few funerary photographs. The context, though, is very different, in that my photos would have been taken at the request of the family, and at that time and in that culture, it was sometimes a thing done.
It felt very odd to watch.
But, videoing or photographing a funeral service for pastoral reasons doesn't relate to tourists doing the same.
My late father was very interested in the ships that came in (he trained as an engineer at Scott's shipyard in Greenock), and whenever there was a ship in, he'd go down to the harbour and photograph it. When we spoke on the phone when I lived in Newfoundland he'd tell me what was in, and in several cases, the ships that had been in Kirkwall one week would turn up a couple of weeks later in St. John's (assuming they didn't get stuck in an Atlantic hurricane).
Cruise ships really are a mixed blessing. I can understand how certain places, whether at home or abroad, benefit economically from their visits, but O! the environmental impact of these monstrous things...
Our former Father F***wit used to take Lovely Wife on 2, or possibly 3, cruises each year, and boasted on his return of the mountains of food they'd 'pigged themselves on' (his words), and the way they'd been waited on hand-and-foot by the servants.
When we observed Sea Sunday, in support of the work of the Mission to Seafarers in helping exploited and underpaid seafarers, including those on cruise ships, the irony was completely lost on Father F...
*ahem*
I do apologise. Rant over. Please, carry on as you were.
Yes, yes - I know, working conditions (and wages) were often bl**dy awful, but still...that sense of something lost is perfectly understandable...
Fair point. I stand corrected - it's the families of the crew (as well as the charity shops) who benefit...
That wasn't in the Hamnavoe restaurant, was it? In the last few years before we left, it was a very good reason for going to The Other Place. It was run by a barmy Irish lady called Catriona (who inexplicably took a liking to David and me, and used to give us free puddings), and the food was to die for.
@Piglet I prefer Stromness to the hectic pace of Kirkwall
@Sandemaniac At the museum in Stromness I was, as a Canadian, gobsmacked by the number of Canadian, or related to Canada, artifacts it had. The captions explained (and I had been unaware of this) that for many Hudson's Bay Company ships Stromness was the last port of call before heading out across the Atlantic.
I do not exaggerate when I say that Orkney was one of the happiest times of my life. Had I not made arrangements to meet friends on the Continent, I would have stayed a month.
He's right, you know. What with Tesco and St Magnus, and that roundabout, Kirkwall was wild and made my head spin. Stromness is altogether a more relaxed place. I shall be back in Orkney as soon as I possibly can. We only spent a week there in May a few years ago, before the annual cruise ship invasion. I've rarely been so content in my life as for those few days. It was even better than Newfoundland.
I've always liked the community feel, and the fact that you can't go to the supermarket without meeting someone you know. While I'm aware that a feather at one end of the street becomes a feather bed by the time it gets to the other*, it never bothered me that everybody knew everything about everyone else.
When David and I got engaged, there was no need to put an announcement in the weekly paper - it happened on Sunday and by Thursday everybody knew!
* As a dear friend, who was often the subject of local gossip, used to say, "if they're talking about me, they're leaving somebody else alone". He also said if he'd done half the things people said he had, he'd have had a jolly good time ...