Everything Is Possible

A Long day.

Was on a train from Leeds to Scarborough this morning when it stopped in the middle of nowhere for ages. And by middle of nowhere I mean no mobile signal or wi-fi connection to get a message out to explain delays. Seems the train in front of ours encountered a cow on the line. That cow won't be on the line ever again, or indeed anywhere else! So eventually we reversed back to York, the last station we'd been through two hours earlier. Quote from the guard: "we're waiting on some farmers coming down with tractors to move it; they won't give us permission to just push on and 'move it' ourselves - apparently it's the biggest cow anyone's ever seen"!! The mind boggles. (I assume 'they' were Network Rail - you can kind of see their point!)

It wasn't actually the first 'bovine encounter' I had today. I popped in for a coffee for breakfast just before I got on the train - a woman in the queue in front of me showed me an address on her phone and asked if I knew directions to it, but I said that I wasn't local so wasn't able to help. She asked the server if she knew, but she didn't either so the woman muttered something I didn't pick up and walked out. The server laughed and said she was Polish, and the customer must also have been because she had said in Polish "thanks for nothing, cow!"
Never be rude to people serving you food & drink.

So a long day with delayed and curtailed meetings, not to mention the 28 degree heat (felt like 38 to my Scottish bones). Not surprisingly, blip opportunities were the last thing on my mind, but staying in York tonight I thought I'd just wander past the Minster for a bog-standard snap before finding somewhere to eat.
And I seemed to enter a parallel dimension.

First off, the guy walking along The Shambles in front of me (first Extra) was obviously heading along to start giving a Ghost walk/talk. A black & white shot seemed appropriate.

There was also a troupe (is that the correct collective noun? Maybe a band, or a posse, who knows?) of Morrismen. So Extra two.
Morris dancers just always make me think of those old Hammer movies & similar TV series from the Seventies where the local squire would be the leader but secretly at night they're all dancing round the woods devil-worshipping. My viewing tastes always were eclectic! I guess it's just that time of the year - the solstice/Midsummer is almost upon us. It's probably a 'company' of Morrismen, but I think I'll just go with a cabal in honour of my youthful viewing habits.

But the most interesting and completely unexpected thing I encountered you can see in my Main photo.
York Theatre Royal, with Pilot Theatre, are performing a play (until July 1st) called Everything Is Possible - The York Suffragettes. It's a large scale community production with a cast of around 150 and they start outdoors before moving onto the stage at York Theatre Royal. Here they are on the steps of York Minster, having marched there from Petergate.
In my head, I'm reliving Mary Poppins. Votes For Women!