Hi.
Some more photos from my trip up to Litchfield County last weekend. It was such a luxury to take long walks, and stop and take photos, and not have to chase Anna in the middle of it all. Although the friend I was with remarked that walking with me was like walking a dog-walk, stop, take a picture, walk a little more, etc... (I assure you she said this kindly.)

One of the things I had wanted to do up there was stop in a bookstore. I keep a running list of recommendations (mostly from blogs. mostly from Shari, actually), and wanted to find one or two of them to get started on. On the way home (Tim and Anna had come to pick me up Sunday morning) we stopped in Kent, Ct. Tim took Anna to a park nearby and gave me some time alone to browse in the bookstore there. It was one of those bookstores that you could (I could) spend hours in. Hours.

For some reason I always associate bookstores with my father, although I can't remember a particular time we were ever together in one. We did travel together a lot when I was young-practically all summer-and I picture us ducking into a bookshop in some foreign city or another, and each getting lost in the stacks.

When I was growing up, there was a bookstore here in town. It's where the tearoom is now, for those of you who live here. The Book Inn. It's long gone, but I can still picture the layout in detail.

Unfortunately, there isn't another bookshop here now. I'm happy for all of the nice little shops and restaurants that we do have, but I do so wish that I lived in a town with a bookshop. I think it's important.

I've heard of the concept of having a "third place": somewhere other than home, other than work, that you gather with people. I suppose a coffee house or bar very often fills that role. I guess I just always pictured my third place as being a bookstore. In a way, that's what we are hoping to create in the gallery.

Anyway.
I could have gotten the books I was looking for on amazon. (They weren't even available at the library.) But I drove over to a neighboring town, and asked the extraordinarily nice owners of the bookshop there to order them for me. She was very glad I did, and it made me happy to do right by a small business. I'm going to try hard to remember that as I finish up my Christmas shopping.

Ok. Hope you are well. Thanks for reading.
tt