I'm late!

With all the kerfuffle going on, I never did get round to posting yesterday as I had intended. You see, yesterday was Trafalgar Day, the anniversary of the battle in 1805 in which the British fleet, commended by Admiral Lord Nelson, defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar. Nelson's flagship was HMS Victory, which has the distinction of being the oldest commissioned warship in the world!

Borrowed from the Daily Mail but I see another has copyright. Sorry!

I sometimes wonder how much of the ship actually saw the dockyard at Chatham when she was launched in 1765. A bit like the story of "my grandfather's axe. My father gave it a new haft and I gave it a new head".

Nelson, of course, was shot and killed during the battle and his body was preserved in a barrel of brandy.

Which reminds me of the story of a guide on the Victory telling a party of tourists, "That plaque on the deck is the spot where Nelson fell." To which one of the tourists responds, "I'm not surprised. I nearly tripped over it myself!"

On the quayside at Falmouth, Cornwall.