Graveyard Near the House

We attempted an early start today but we were stymied by 3M going into Jessie mode, which means that although everything has been switched off that can be switched off AND checked three times she still has to ask “did we ….?” which causes me to make the noises that the Tasmanian Devil does in the Looney Tunes cartoon. Still had plenty of time to catch the ferry as I allow extra time for her 'turns'.

We had to depart a day earlier than originally planned as 3M had received a recall on the car due to possible sensor issues. As we were about to undertake a long journey it seemed prudent to alter our itinerary to accommodate the work. As it turned out, 3M's car was fine and it only took 45 minutes to carry out the work and health check but it meant spending a night in Inverness.

Usually when we go to Inverness it's either a stopover on the way home from somewhere or a day trip for specific shopping. This time we had no plans as we did not know how long the work on the car would take so 3M magnanimously suggested that we could go to Leakies, which is a second hand book shop. It has been suggested before but I've always said “another time”, making people think I was sickening for something. It wasn't that I didn't want to go, rather the thought of being there and not being able to take all the books home would have been traumatic. I'm not exaggerating, when we just walked up the steps and I saw 3 or 4 books on display I was squeaking “oooh” and “aah”. Anyway, went into the shop (which is an old church) and my jaw just dropped. It's not as big as Baggins in Rochester but it looked more organised, which, to a certain degree, it was. Most fiction was filed by author but biographies and histories were random on the shelves so I said to 3M that I would like, in the not too distant future, to come back to Inverness for a couple of days just for me to browse through here. I did ask the lady at the counter if I could take all the books home and she replied “yes ….. if you buy them”. Always a catch, eh. Nearly bought a 2 volume biography of Thomas Carlyle but hesitated “just in case there's something else I want”. Which would have been everything

So what has all that waffle got to do with today's pic? Well, it was very odd. We were making our way nonchalantly towards the bookshop when some parked cars caught my eye, only because somebody had thrown their fish and chips wrapping on top of one of the cars (thought I was back in Medway) and a young gull was pulling at it. If I hadn't looked in that direction I wouldn't have noticed a decaying tractor there. Moved between the cars and there were 6 different makes of tractors standing in what I would call a tractor graveyard. Weeds were growing between and inside them and leaves and rubbish were gathering round the wheels. I don't know why they're there but if someone could enlighten me I would be very grateful.