A night on the grass

at Harcourt Arboretum, celebrating a friend's birthday at a serendipitous fundraiser for the arboretum...

...after a morning with some friends visiting from Bath at the Ashmolean Museum exhibition of Raphael drawings.

A wonderful exhibition which made me really look and think. Lots of muscled men and lots of what were alleged to be images of the Madonna and Child but which were in fact real women looking after real children.

Which came together in this. Look at the woman in the middle coming straight towards you. In a moment she's going to ask for your help. What will you do? (She's from Syria, by the way, this month.)

Does anyone know when the first image of a man caring for children was produced?

I think I'm going to have to go and see it again – it won't leave me alone.