Today I was doing a spot of digging in an area of the garden I've never dug. As gardeners, I'm sure we all find interesting bits and pieces. I regularly find old medicine bottles, as a previous owner was involved with pharmacy. I've also found thin, sealed-glass straws, containing various plant names on small slithers of paper.
This is probably one of the most intriguing items I've discovered. The actual piece is a few centimetres thick, and would happily fit in the palm of your hand. The image has been applied in a thin glaze.
It's not from a vase, as it is completely flat. The glaze undulates slightly, in a solid, non-moving kind of way.
Unfortunately the light bulbs don't do it any justice (the table is pure white). The background is a deep, navy blue. At first I thought the subject was a woman, but I think I may have got that wrong. The animal looks like a rabbit, I reckon.
We aren't far away from the Mediaeval Merton Priory. I wonder...
Another archaeological find is my angry African. He's a bit bigger, and is carved from stone. He is likely to be a lot younger than the first piece. I found him when I was walking through a busy shopping area in Harare. I looked down, and there he was, staring angrily up through the blades of grass. A bit of digging resulted in a rather special holiday memento.
Being left buried like that, I suppose I'd be angry too.
