Behind Bars

Not me of course. No this is St Nicholas Kirk on Aberdeen's Union Street. There is a strong connection between bars and churches in Aberdeen. Some churches, like this one are behind bars. In this case quite monumental bars with a monumental gate leading to the Kirk and the graveyard surrounding the church. I briefly lived next door to this church and it was nice to hear the bells chiming the hours. If I remember correctly the chimes were turned off between 10 pm and 7 am. From the window of my flat we occasionally saw rabbits and squirrels in the graveyard, but we never saw and ghosts.

At the same time several churches have been converted into bars. Not all totally successfully in my opinion. I wonder whose clients leave more satisfied. Though some some may be customers of both, going from a practising church, to one which has been converted to a bar. That way satisfaction must be more or less guaranteed.

It might be said that if St Nicholas Kirk were ever converted to any use other than the one it has currently, then the state of christianity would be dire indeed.

Finally my thanks to FinHall for identifying the duck yesterday. It is a Mandarin duck. According to Wikipedia there are only about 7,000 of them in the UK. I wonder how this one found its way to Johnston Gardens in Aberdeen.