Art, Treasure and Books

I recently spent a few hours in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. I do love this museum and many years ago, when I worked just a few minutes walk away, I used to spend most lunchtimes looking round the Natural History Section. Sadly, this part of the museum is no longer on display although I discovered recently that it is stored as a collection and I think you may be able to visit by prior arrangement.

Apologies if some of the photos are a bit "iffy" (especially the paintings) - I had the usual problem with low light and slow shutter speeds.

I loved this colourful dress - from memory an Irish Dancer's dress.

I spent quite a lot of time looking round the Art Galleries especially the Pre-Raphaelite section.

I was really pleased to see one of my favourite paintings back on display - last time I visited I couldn't find it anywhere.

A not much better photo of a post card I bought.

Then I went along to the main reason for my visit - the new Staffordshire Hoard Exhibition. This Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found. The artefacts are made of gold, silver and garnets and it is thought they were probably taken from the armour, weaponry and religious items of defeated armies in England in the 7th century. I did visit an earlier exhibition some years ago once the initial huge queues to gain admission had died down but photos weren't allowed then. The new exhibition contains hundreds of pieces on display with information on the conservation work used on the artefacts and hands on displays about the craftmanship and design.

Replica's of two of the objects

I thought the decoration and intricate workmanship and animal art in some of the objects was beautiful.



A little purchase from the shop! :)

Books


I love the books published by Little Toller and have just finished reading The Ash Tree by Oliver Rackham which is a lovely and exceedingly interesting book. Ash is one of our commonest trees and has recently come to the public's attention due to the onset of Ash Disease. This book is the first written on the ecology and history of this species looking at the part it has played in our culture and explaining diseases that affect the tree. Oliver Rackham argues that globilisation is the biggest threat to the world's forests and trees.

I read about Anne Cleeves on "Corners of My Mind" Blog - and possibly on Bovey Belle's too? - so thanks Rosie and BB. So when I saw Amazon inviting you to try a new author and saw this book for 99p it was on my Kindle within minutes. I hadn't seen the tv series and it is sadly not on iplayer but I loved this book. Luckily, I had bought the second in the series also for 99p and it won't be long before I am buying the rest although sadly the price has gone up!