Photo-a-Day  (Friday, 4th October, 2019)

I wonder if the priest put up the German flag

A strange and mysterious quality to this photo. Innocent but with a Pinteresque sense of some underlying oddness. Perhaps it's the single van on an empty car park that is so inexplicably sinister.

Tourists finding free parking, or 'spies' testing the atmosphere over Brexit..

Well, I supposed perhaps he was the first of the rush of tourists arriving in Standish to mark the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower....

t'only spy theer is joe kerr :¬)

He would be better off going to the place the Pilgrims landed (1620)at Plymouth Rock,far more interesting and beautiful. I suppose he is hunting the birthplace of Myles Standish. Not sure he will find it there, there's a lot of debate about that. Maybe he is working his way around where all the passengers came from.There is or was,a replica of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock that you could board and look around, with actors playing the part of the passengers- marvellous English accents, saying they were American.

That campervan looks like it's Billy-No-Mates, all on its own! xx

Well Veebs, I hope these marvellous English accents of which you speak were a degree or two more believable than Dick Van Dyke's titter inducing Cockney accent in Mary Poppins.....
....or John Wayne's rolling about on the floor laughing uncontrollably, clutching ones stomach and gasping for breath inducing utterance,..." This man was truly the son of God ", in ' The Greatest Story Ever Told '......Oh Lordy Lordy!

It comes as something of a surprise to me, that a great nation such as the U.S., with its unparalleled success at undermining democratically elected left wing governments, bombing third world countries into oblivion, and generally stirring it globally, as well as pointlessly landing men on the moon, should experience so much difficulty when it comes to reproducing an authentic sounding English accent.

Incidentally, fragments ot the timbers from the ' Mayflower ' were allegedly incorporated into a barn in the village of Jordans in Bucks.,,and I'd just like to take this opportunity to stress the word ' allegedly '.

The place is called , somewhat unsurprisingly....The Mayflower Barn.... It's only a few hundred yards from the burial place of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania , and isn't all that far from Slough,...., or as we wagon drivers prefer to call it , ' Sluff ',
where you may recall Sir John Betjeman lived....." Come friendly bombs and fall on Sluff, of modern trends, we've had enuff "... .
and where Julie is currently domiciled....allegedly!......
.......Google it .

Ozy.

Much better accents than Dick Van Dyke or The Duke! In fact the 'acting'on board ship was superb. New England seems more English than here! I loved the place Ozy...

Ve af ways of making you park ya!

Das is Mein Kampf-er Van.

He looks set up to launch a doodlebug on Horwich loco works to me.

Interestingly (for me) a role player asked where I came from in England. I told her I was born in Wigan Lancashire. As soon as I said that, her attitude changed immediately. Did I know Myles Standish? (Still in her role)
Of course I said no, but I lived near the place Standish. She was so informed with her knowledge of history it was amazing. What a fuss she made, I felt like a relative of old Miley! It was a great holiday - one of the best! And a credit to the New Englanders.

Two famous but less well known Standishers were Ralph Standish who in defence of Richard the Second ran through Wat Tyler with his sword , and bishop Henry Standish who officiated at the coronation of Anne Boleyn.

Just a trivial bit of useless info Veebs, of which I'm sure you'll doubtless already be aware.
Plymouth Rock wasn't actually the site where the Mayflower first made landfall. It was the vessel's fourth landing site evidently.
It was yon pome wot was rote by an amateur Welsh pote , A certain Felicia Dorothea Hemens , written several years after the event which gave rise to the erroneous belief
( among many Americans at least ) that it was.

Regards. Ozy..

The early morning Car Boot starter
Had sung a line from Stabat Mater
Then welcomed back old Fritz, allein,
For whom he held the antique stein'.

I can add to that Veronica as my wife & I took a America Coast to Coast train journey in 1996 as part of our 25th anniversary holiday. As we were eating breakfast on the train one morning, a group of Americans across the aisle heard our accents, and asked where we came from. I said the Wirral but was born in Standish in Lancashire. The next thing we were all like buddies talking about Myles Standish and the Mayflower. They certainly knew their history. About 20 minutes later a chap comes to us having heard the conversation and said he was born and brought up in Wigan but now lives in the Midlands. He was a travel guide with another group of tourists on the train.We were between Denver and San Francisco at the time crossing the desert. Time flew that morning.

Well they had to land somewhere and the great big rock , (which apparently split in two
years later, and the pilfering from it) must have seemed an ideal landmark. It is revered though as THE place and is now enshrined so it can't be touched. There are millions of descendants from the original Pilgrims. Beautiful place Cape Cod,toured all around there and the Plantation where they settled, built as the first settlers built it.

The Americans I came across Barry were all lovely people, dispelling any pre- conceived ideas that they would be 'big heads'! And so patriotic and welcoming....