High Winds in the Highlands

High winds in the highlands forced the tour I had scheduled for today to cancel. Apparently the bus we were meant to take would most likely tip while crossing a particular bridge. I don't know if the certainty which this was explained to me with was from experience, but I am hoping it was just a hunch. The tour director was right about one thing though, the winds are indeed high here in Inverness today. High and frigid. So frigid in fact that it quickly drove my plan of exploring the town out of my head and I somewhat desperately searched for shelter from the elements. I came across a place called Leakey's Cafe and Bookshop. It used to be a church that has been now been converted into a used and antique book shop with a cafe serving homemade soups with "crusty bread" from the second floor balcony.

Travelling through the UK I have come across many old churches now being used for different functions. In York there was one that is now a somewhat trendy night spot, another that rents out to a rotating number of charities who use it to sell affordable lunches and homemade goods to help fund their activities. When I was in York the charity was benefiting the blind and there were guide dogs lounging around the tables and people munched happily on their sandwiches. One of Edinburgh's old churches located right on the royal mile now houses a tourist information and tour booking service. It feels odd walking in these buildings now serving a modern function yet with the same statues, engravings and plaques on the wall that have stood there when people came to be closer to God and not book and all day highland sightseeing tour. Regardless of this sharp justification I think it is a good thing that these cities have not permitted the destruction of these age old buildings in what is now prime real estate territory. It saves the character of the city center and in a day where people no longer require as many churches due to both mobility and the frequency of visits it pays appropriate homage to a time where these buildings were the center of the community that they were located in.

Leakey's cafe and bookshop greets the visitor immediately in from the wind with the aroma of soup and the sight of books piled on the shelves and shin high from the floor. It is the kind of place that in its warm (and aromatic) embrace you never want to leave (especially to return to the cold, cold world outside). I immediately drifted over to the travel section. I am, in my opinion, quite the connoisseur of travel writing. I never dreamed of so many worn hardback copies of books on people's adventures to parts of the globe that were once unknown. I flipped through treks of Asia, sea adventures to tropical islands and expeditions up to the tops of mountains once claimed unreachable. Selecting a few titles I climbed up the winding stairs to the cafe where I warmed both my body and mind with soup and the Indies. While this building is no longer used for the religious services that it was intended for, I think that this is the next best thing. The communion that people take part in here is not one of the saints but one of minds. Soup as our wine and books for our bread.