Inprint books, Stroud

The promised sunny day arrived, preceded by a heavy frost and I stayed in bed rather longer than I wanted. I then overstayed my soak in the bath, so that by the time I was ready for my photo shoot I had less time to play with.

I had promised to record some current views of the various buildings in and around the town which Stroud Preservation Trust have spent some of the last thirty years restoring. So at lunchtime I set off in very warm clothes and was glad that I was so well prepared. In fact all my attempts seemed to go well, aided throughout by the brighter sunlight, although by early afternoon the clouds were rolling back in.

At one point, I had to wait for someone to return home to their flat in one of the Trust's buildings, so that I could go out on to their first floor balcony to re-enact a scene from thirty years ago, looking out over the now restored yard which now consists of a thriving cafe, cookery shop, fabric shop and a 'natural' (their name) health centre.

While I waited for them to return, after shooting the final shot of the 'Medieval Hall' which I had previewed here on Tuesday, I took some pictures of the third shop down the road on the left. Inprint is a good secondhand bookshop, where I've managed to spend lots of money over the years as they seem to have the books I like.

I love the turquoise tiles which frame and highlight their shop windows, and I've nearly blipped them before. I was enjoying having use of a wider angle lens today and liked the strange shape of their building and its location beside the alley that separates them from the old 'Medieval Hall'. I don't know what they make of the relatively recent occupants of the shop opposite called 'Fortune Faeries', which I haven't been in, yet. That would be quite a challenge.

Do you like the shape of the upper part of the Hall, just above the exterior of the shop? You can see it on the far right of this old picture of the parade of shops before all the others were pulled down in aid of progress fro Stroud. Apparently some of the interior walls date from about 1385.