Nimrud

There was an example of the Assyrian view of  "the body" at the British Museum exhibition, taken from its wonderful collection of friezes. It showed prisoners strung up.
Now the old capital of Assyria, Nimrud, has apparently been completely destroyed by the philistine IS. King Ashurnasirpal II who reigned from 883-859 BC built the city of Nimrud. Here's one of the inscriptions which used to be on its walls:

"The palace of cedar, cypress, juniper, boxwood, mulberry, pistachio wood, and tamarisk, for my royal dwelling and for my lordly pleasure for all time, I founded therein. Beasts of the mountains and of the seas, of white limestone and alabaster I fashioned and set them up on its gates." 

Discobolus

This was my favourite piece at the British Museum's exhibition of the body in Greek art. It's a Roman copy of a lost Greek original. The lines, the symmetry, the grace, the rippling muscles: stunning! The majority of the exhibits are from the BM's own collection but there is a beautiful Aphrodite on loan from the Queen and the hermaphrodite from the Villa Borghese in Rome is also on display.

Surprise of the day

Behind the washing line, hiding in a clump of grass, a wild duck is sitting on a dozen eggs. This isn't a photo of her (I didn't want to scare her) but I do hope to be able to show you some of the ducklings when they hatch.

Family portrait

These two lambs were born in our neighbour's field yesterday.

I heard this bad (Christmas cracker?) joke over Easter:

Q: What's the fastest thing on earth?
A: Milk because it's past your eyes before you can see it.

In bloom and close up

Happy Easter!

Dear deer

There were two young deer frolicking on the land behind our house in the autumn. They would race through the trees, leap along the fields, white tails bobbing, full of joy and great companions. I saw them again in February, darting from field to forest, and at the beginning of March, just behind our garden, close up and grown up but still brimming with enthusiasm and energy.
My neighbour told me she'd found one of them in her field last week, shot and its legs hacked off. She had to deal with the carcass. She thinks the poacher must have had a silencer on his rifle as she heard nothing. I can only imagine the grief of its good companion, if indeed it escaped.