Piety, chimney pots and a boot sale

An historic home in Worcestershire displayed the children's game Snakes and Ladders.  At first glance  it seemed a reptilian precursor to the fun/frustrating game of chutes and ladders.  But this Victorian board was much more -- a morality game, with clear directives as to the sort of behavior that leads to Heaven or Hell.  Among the Hell routes:  depravity, avarice, covetousness, unpunctuality, quarrelsomeness, vanity, "going to the theatre every evening" (what?), and many more.  Routes to heaven:  forgiveness, pity, faith, virtuousness, kindness, piety, self-denial.  It's a game of roll-the-dice chance, with waay more ways to go to Hell than Heaven.  Hmm.  

There've been great chimney pots all over the UK.  

There's apparently not much rhyme or reason, no structure to their variation.  Most of the homes -- semi-attached and attached -- are individually owned, and when a new chimney pot is needed the chimney owner or workman makes the decision.  And the pots can last for decades, centuries.

We went to an outdoor antique/flea market/boot sale while in the shire of Worcester, with thousands of others.  Biggest flea market I've ever seen.  And this one had lots of stuffed and mounted animals.  There were lots of deer heads, badgers, foxes, squirrels, pheasants -- mostly gentle creatures from the Redwall books.  And the military offerings (WWI and II) was plentiful, too.  The stuff in Britain's attics seems quite exotic to a midwesterner.

Stuffed caimans in a retrofitted caiman holder.