A low but notable mound from which two thick-trunked birch-trees rise, seen leafless against a blue sky. Towards the lower left-hand corner, the roof of a twelfth-century stone church can be seen in the distance, as well as its modern spire.

This is a pre-Christian burial mound at Stiklestad, located on the top of an old river-bank. It looks out on a plain on which a twelfth-century stone church is situated, & which in turn was built on the location where it was believed that Saint Olaf had been killed in 1030.

The ruined Cistercian Abbey of Villers. Amazing and such a quick trip from Brussels.

A white painted cottage in twilight

The delightful C18th Grade II listed cottage on Skokholm at twilight last night.

This was where Ronald Lockley set up the first bird observatory in the 1920s. It has since been immaculately restored by volunteers 👌

'And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter…'

Seamus Heaney, 'Postscript'.

www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/heaney

A fond farewell to the wintering curlew And a race against time at sea

For World Curlew Day today a piece I wrote last year, about the curlews of my native North Pennines, and a race against time at sea

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A carpet of bluebells on the floor of a woodland made up of bare coppiced trees.

A close-up of bluebell flowers; beyond, a carpet of bluebells on the floor of a woodland made up of bare coppiced trees.

Seen across an expanse of grass, a carpet of bluebells on the floor of a woodland made up of tall mature trees coming into leaf.

A path between two very old oak trunks, their crowns broken off - on either side is brown bracken and small areas of bluebells, amidst other more intact trees.

Our local bluebell wood (Captain's Wood, Sudbourne, a Suffolk Wildlife Trust site). Every spring I'm startled again to learn how local this glorious display is to the UK - some huge proportion of the world's bluebells here in this country - and struck by how brief it is, just a few weeks.

My photo shows a Paleo-Babylonian clay tablet inscribed with cuneiform text, still partially enclosed in its original clay envelope. The clay is pale orangey-brown in colour displayed against a grey display case background. The outer envelope has been broken open, revealing the inner tablet beneath. Both surfaces are covered with densely packed wedge-shaped characters, which record a contract for the sale of a house purchased by Mannum-balu-Samas at the price of 1/3 shekel and 15 grains of silver. This is followed by the names of the numerous witnesses including the mayor Sin-magir and the courier Apil-ilisu. The same text is repeated on the envelope in the event of a dispute, which was broken to inspect the internal document. It is dated 32nd year of Hammurabl's reign, 10th month, c. 1750 BC. The clay envelope measures 87 mm (height) × 55 mm (width), while the inner tablet measures 64 mm (height) × 43 mm (width). On display at the Museum of Antiquity in Turin. Collection number MAT 740.

A 3,750 year-old contract for the sale of a house recorded on a clay tablet, still in its original clay envelope!

Museo di Antichità, Turin
📷 by me

#Archaeology

Pour celles et ceux qui ne connaissent pas encore Alexander Calder ou souhaitent mieux le comprendre, une exposition s'impose : "Calder : rêver en équilibre" à la Fondation Louis Vuitton. Son travail y est présenté d'une manière très subtile et surtout pédagogique. Une belle réussite ! #HDA

Art & object highlights from the 'In Bloom' #exhibition @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social: 'Orchids' by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, 1879; 19th-century teaching models of plants; an 18th-century pharmacy jar and a 17th-century floral still life by Rachel Ruysch; a recent tapestry by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg

#MosaicMonday

The Lady of #Carthage is a mosaic probably dating back to the 6th century AD. It is considered a portrait of a #Byzantine #empress. The technique of alternating quarry tiles with glass tiles, and beauty make it an important piece.
#Art #History #Archaeology

Access to trees is becoming a luxury in European cities A “green divide” is growing between richer and poorer Europeans, a new study finds.

Wealthy Europeans are far more likely to have access to nature than the continent's low-income residents. (..)
Less than 15 % of people living in 862 cities analyzed by European Commission and University of Copenhagen researchers were found to have proper access to trees, shade and green spaces.

Ellen Nussey (1817–97), painting by Frederic Yates (1854–1919) held in the Brontë Parsonage Museum Collection Public Domain. Ellen Nussey was the lifelong friend and correspondent of author Charlotte Brontë.

Born just down the road from me in Birstall Smithies OTD, 20 April in 1817 Ellen Nussey was Charlotte Brontë’s closest lifelong friend and correspondent. She preserved hundreds of her letters written between 1831 and 1855. They offer an intimate record of Charlotte’s life,

"Reader, I married him."
Charlotte Brontë, born #OTD 1816, English novelist, author of Jane Eyre, published in 1847, under her pen name Currer Bell.
Chalk portrait 1850 by George Richmond, National Portrait Gallery London | Haworth Parsonage Museum

Before & after: Humphry Repton, English picturesque landscape designer, born #OTD 1752; mentioned in Austen’s Mansfield Park & satirised by Peacock as Marmaduke Milestone; his famous red books suggested improvements to country house owners in overlay watercolour views.
Wentworth Woodhouse Yorkshire

In Greek mythology, Achilles concealed himself, dressed as a woman, amongst the seven daughters of Lycomedes. When Ulysses sought him out for the Trojan War, he tricked him into revealing himself, by staging an attack. Achilles reached for his weapons - and was revealed.

Achilles discovered by Ulysses amongst daughters of Lycomedes, oil on canvas c 1650, by Jan Boeckhorst, versatile German-born Flemish artist, friend & collaborator of Rubens; died #OTD 1668. Painter of well-composed & dramatic mythological scenes, he also designed tapestry cartoons.
Alte Pinakothek

The Fitzwilliam Museum shortlisted for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2026 The news comes as the Fitzwilliam celebrates record-breaking visitor numbers with 2025 becoming the second-highest attendance on record (493,612), following a

The Fitzwilliam Museum has today been announced as one of five finalists for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2026, the world’s largest museum prize! 🎨 🖼️ 🏛️

Explore what the nomination means:
www.cam.ac.uk/news/the-fit...

We are looking at a painting of St Liphardus - a 6th-century lawyer, hermit and abbot in Meung-sur-Loire near Orléans, France. He is wearing bishops clothing including a surplus and mitre and is holding a crook. On a lead is a small knee high green and blue dragon.

We’re very sorry sir but you cannot bring your emotional support dragon in here.

An evening view of a lighthouse across rocky cliffs

Good evening from beautiful Skokholm island 🥰. Lots of archaeological potential here which we are just beginning to uncover 👌

Exposition La Marine et les peintres - Musée national de la Marine | L'Officiel des spectacles Paris 16e • Découvrez l'exposition du 13 mai 2026 au 2 août 2026 • Quatre siècles d'art et de pouvoir. Œuvres exposées, informations pratiques et avis des visiteurs.

#Exposition La Marine et les peintres, au Musée National de la Marine (Paris).
www.offi.fr/expositions-...

Whether or not you have been to the Kederminster Library at Langley Marish (now in the suburbs of Slough), do share this one abd consider visiting. It’s utterly spectacular and worth a long journey. langleymarish.com/stmary/keder... - hats off for them for seeing that is open to be visited.

Photo of yellow crepuscular rays stretching down onto a puddle of yellow light on dark blue sea in front of the outline of a small humped island silhouetted against an orange stripe of sunset sky. In the foreground, bare trees are silhouetted against those pastel blue sea nearer the shore.

Sunset over Ynys Enlli / Bardsey Island just now.

Doing a bit of research ahead of a circular walk next weekend through a landscape that has the strongest topographical links to events mentioned in the fourth branch of the Mabinogi.

Extraordinary companions to the pulpit at Trowse Church, Norfolk

Scrubbed up nicely... the star of the free George Stubbs display at the National Gallery in London: Scrub, a Bay Horse Belonging to the Marquess of Rockingham, about 1762, Private collection. Read about the exhibition on our blog: art-exhibitions.blogspot.com/2026/04/stub...

A rum situation where it is the legal profession which has held firm, whilst the political and justice systems have simply given way.

But you can't pardon a disbarment.

A view through the C12th west doorway of the monastic church at Jedburgh Abbey in the Scottish Borders. Initially founded as a priory in 1138 by David I, it became an abbey in 1154. 📸 My own. #MedievalMonday #JedburghAbbey

A river with a large boat in the foreground and a village beyond.

Down by the river in spring.

Initial 'P'(aulus) unveiled with a jolly dragon in its tail
#ManuscriptMonday
BnF MS Latin 17246; Petrus Lombardus, Collectanea in epistolas Pauli; 1160-1180; Paris; f.112r @gallicabnf.bsky.social

LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries — insanely expensive but utterly astonishing Breaking every rule of museum design, architect Peter Zumthor has created a $724mn blockbuster for Los Angeles

www.ft.com/content/3ac8... LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries — insanely expensive but utterly astonishing

My photo shows a Hellenistic era hemispherical mosaic glass bowl viewed from above. The glass has a floral pattern made up of tiny, many-petalled blue, white, and yellowy-green flowers against a dark purple background (looks black in my photo). The bowl has an alternating diagonal-striped black and white glass rim. The bowl has been reconstructed from fragments and the plain light blue areas are where missing glass fragments have been replaced during reconstruction. It measures 13.2 cm in diameter and 7.5 cm in height. It was made in the eastern Mediterranean about 200-100 BC.

This Hellenistic mosaic glass bowl looks so modern, yet it was made over 2,000 years ago!

Ancient glassmakers created the tiny flower pattern using a technique now known as ‘millefiori’ (thousand flowers). A timeless design still made by glassmakers today!

British Museum 📷 by me

#Archaeology