Barter Books ~ Saturday

Today started well and just got better. If you could put together Kate's perfect day then it would consist of cafe's, wonderful company, the sea and a second hand bookshop.

I got the sea

Then I got the bookshop. Not any old bookshop, the best secondhand bookshop in the UK.

I was introduced to Barter Books

Just amazing

It's in a disused Victorian train station
It has proper OLD books
It has really rare books that looked so beautiful it was akin to walking round an art gallery.
It has a miniature train track on the top of the shelves.
It has vintage sofa's to just chill on.
It has a quiet room to read in.
It has open fires.
It has a great cafe. WITH CAKE.
It has hundreds of Penguin classics.
You know the 'Keep calm and Carry on' poster? - it was discovered here.

While my friend paid for his goods... I had a wander and stumbled upon the thing that touched me most out of the whole experience.

There was a newspaper article on how the couple who ran the shop met....

Mary and Stuart Manley met when he threw her a note during a transatlantic plane journey.

It said: 'if you want to talk to me, raise your hand'," says Mary. "I'd asked for a seat on my own because I just wanted to read a book

"..but I raised my hand, Stuart sat down, and basically in the course of the flight, he told me how his wife didn't understand him (laughs). He was getting divorced, and I thought, 'this isn't good'. But it ended up really well; we got married three years later."

Stuart says it was "the ultimate in luck".

"I don't go round chatting up women; it was only because frankly, I was transfixed and I thought I must do something," he says.

Luck got them together. I LOVE that.

Walking up and down the aisles - I snapped my [Blip]
______________________________________

Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come,

and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land"

Song of Songs, Song of Solomon

Long story short: the Song of Songs is a set of beautiful poems directed between two lovers, as they describe in very flowery language their desire and lust for one another.