Reunion of Charles I's collection is a once-in-a-lifetime wonder

Art and monarchy haven't been happy bedfellows in England. Quite the opposite. Our greatest royal
patrons have often come to sticky ends.

Richard II brought the courtly majesty of the international gothic style to England, pouring money into buildings, art and jewellery while setting fashions that would last centuries. Little is left beyond Westminster Hall and the exquisite Wilton Diptych in the National Gallery. Richard himself died in captivity after alienating everyone and triggering a palace coup. George IV literally defined the Regency era, stamping his architectural style across London, restoring palaces to give us most of the interiors we know today and leaving the wonder of Brighton's Royal Pavilion. He was widely reviled at his death. But no monarch pushed the extremes harder than Charles I. The cause of a bloody civil war, branded a traitor and beheaded by his own parliament, he was also the single greatest connoisseur of art ever to sit on this nation's throne.

The Royal Academy's special exhibition is now proving that point with jaw-dropping exuberance. For the first time since 1649, when the culture-hating Roundheads established the Protectorate and flogged off the collection, 140 masterpieces from Charles' precious collection are hanging again under one roof. It is a lavish Old Masters collection that rivals many major museums. It also tells some fascinating stories.

First, that Charles was a revolutionary. England at the time was an artistic backwater. The iconoclasts of Edward VIs reign had whitewashed the churches and destroyed a rich legacy of religious art. In the years that followed, the English displayed a notable talent for wood carving, plasterwork and floral-patterned fabrics, but painting was mostly limited to portraits of stiff nobles in heavy costumes. Into this world Charles brought the second century life-sized Roman statue of the crouching Venus, actually drawing attention to her lush naked curves with her coy attempts to cover herself. Behind her at this show hangs Rubens' larger-than-life painting "Minerva protects Pax from Mars".  More lush, exposed flesh, in a scene of movement and dynamism: armour glints, silks and satins billow, putti prance and a leopard gambols. It's safe to say that people who hadn't left England (which would have been most) would never have seen anything like it. And that anyone who'd been influenced by the buttoned-up conservatism of the Puritans would have been deeply shocked. Charles didn't evolve artistic taste, he dropped a whole new tradition into alien territory.

Second, that Charles had astonishing taste and bought well. If only he could have run his country with the same savvy. As a young man he travelled to Spain to woo a Habsburg bride. He was unsuccessful in love, but the Spanish royal family's art collection inspired him to shop. The gallery filled with his early acquisitions, including some notable Titians, shows off a sure eye for masterpieces from the start. Later, he capitalised on the decline of the noble Italian Gonzaga family, buying as a whole a collection they'd amassed over generations. He looked beyond the continental fashion for the Italians, however, seeing quiet beauty in Bruegel and Rembrandt, and beefing up the family's existing collection of Holbeins. He commissioned new works from Rubens and Van Dyck. He supported the Mortlake Tapestry works in their (ultimately unsuccessful) bid to become an English rival to Savonnieres or Gobelin.

One of Charles' early bargains, when still prince of Wales, had been to pick up Raphael's true-size working drawings for the tapestries then hanging in the Sistine Chapel. Charles then loaned them to Mortlake to create English-produced versions. The results (four from a set of 10) hang here, liberated from storage in the Louvre. Any visitor to the V&A has probably walked by Raphael's drawings, which are undeniably impressive. But the finished products here are awe-inspiring. They take a bit of imagination, given that their gold and silver threads have faded and tarnished, but other colours are still remarkably bright. The movement within the scenes (all taken from the lives of the St. Peter), the life in the faces and the lavish details woven into the borders are all remarkable. It's a real treat to see these, and one of the highlights of the show.

Another is to see three of Van Dyck's monumental portraits of the king in one place. This is a story of rigorous image management; Van Dyck is arguably one of the world's first great PR men. His work transforms Charles from a slight, weak, tentative man into a heroic military leader on horseback (one from Buckingham Palace, one from the National Gallery) and a thoughtful romantic hero captured while hunting (from the Louvre). It's the Louvre's version I like best, and it's a delight to see it here. The adjoining gallery is filled with more family portraiture. Here the Stuarts are a dreamily-gorgeous family in lavish settings, wearing sumptuous clothes, accompanied by majestic horses and adorable dogs. If Hello Magazine had been available to get these images to the wider populous, it might have saved them.

The tale of commerce and dispersal is another fascinating theme to follow. The Parliamentarians might have been artistic Philistines, but they were keen record keepers. They had decided to flog off all of Charles' possessions within two days of taking over. They appraised and catalogued over 5000 items, from art to dog collars and chamber pots, then recorded sale prices. (To be fair, nearly a decade of Civil War had beggared the country; liquidating the royal loot was a way to recoup some losses.) Today's curators have put those sale prices on labels throughout the show. It's great fun to go shopping, compare values and consider changes in taste. Portraiture from Northern artists was a bargain, for example: you could have had 20 for the price of that one crouching Venus. It's also fascinating to see where things went. Loans from the Louvre, the Prado and the Vatican demonstrate that the misfortune of one ruling family aided the collections of others. Around 60% of the items come from our own Royal Collection, testimony to the fact that successive generations worked hard to recover what was lost. Or to re-create. One of the Van Dyck portraits here recorded the crown jewels before Parliament melted them down, becoming a critical guide when they had to be recreated.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are 140 works here (mind-bogglingly, that's still just a bit more than 10% of the works of art that Parliament sold off), and they all deserve contemplation. Other favourites of mine included the famous triple portrait of Charles displayed with a copy of the marble bust for which it was the source material (the Bernini original was destroyed in the Whitehall Palace fire of 1698); Mantegna's enormous series of paintings showing the Triumph of Caesar (usually in its own gallery at Hampton Court, which many visitors miss); an astonishing oversized Roman cameo of the emperor Claudius, displayed so you can look at it side-on and see how the layers of stone have been cut away to create multiple colours; Italian Renaissance bronzes and some exquisitely detailed Nicholas Hilliard miniatures of the Tudors.

The size of the show is, frankly, overwhelming. We had 90 minutes before the gallery closed and felt rushed. I'd recommend a two-hour minimum or, if you can manage it, two visits. That's what I'll be trying to arrange, if I can work it into the diary before the exhibition closes on 15 April.

And if you want to continue the story, you can buy a combined ticket for the Queen's Gallery to see the show there that explores how Charles II started bringing his father's collection back together and used the power of art to restore the monarchy. I reviewed the show here.

Snowdrop festivals herald the English spring

Winter is grey and depressing in England, but it's blessedly short. By mid-February the days are getting noticeably longer and early bulbs are flowering in profusion.

This weekend was, according to horticultural experts, the height snowdrop season. Hundreds of private gardens up and down the country opened as part of the National Gardens Scheme Snowdrop Festival, while most National Trust properties and major gardens were packed with visitors. The English love snowdrops ... and the excuse to get outside in the improving weather.

I didn't have to drive far to revel in garden glories; North Hampshire has abundant snowdrop possibilities and gorgeous drives between each. I started out at Mottisfont Abbey, a National Trust property better known for the roses in its walled garden in May. But walking around the property in November has its own rewards.

The crystal-clear River Test flows through the property, and the woodland on either side is carpeted with snowdrops.

Ten minutes away are the Harold Hillier Gardens, given to Hampshire County Council by the famous nursery and plant-growing family who are perennial exhibitors at Chelsea. The winter garden here is considered one of the best in the county, showing off how various colours of foliage, bark and winter-blooming flowers can put on a display just as impressive as anything in high summer.

There are plenty of snowdrops here, of course, along with that other staple of the mid-February garden: hellebores.

The most amazing display, however, may have been that put on by the cornus (dogwood). In the standing light of late afternoon sun, the red and orange branches blazed like a bonfire.

Hillier helpfully signposts plants of interest throughout the property. Beyond the specific winter garden, there were broad swathes of crocuses in bloom, beds of iris and a plenty of camellias coming into bloom. And with the trees free of leaves, their trunks put on a display of pattern in bark, moss and lichen.

Sunday I took in a triple play of National Garden Society gardens running in a line west from Winchester. The NGS is a wonderful scheme in which private gardens open for charity. They're vetted by judges before they're allowed in the scheme, must offer basic amenities to visitors and are generally a wonderfully acceptable way to be a voyeur. Most of these properties are well worth poking around. And fantasising about. That's certainly true of Down House, a rambling, tile-shingled house surrounded by vineyards overlooking the River Itchen.

I'd visited here in the autumn, when the formal gardens behind the house are a blaze of colour. But at this time of the year it's all about a woodland garden to one side, carpeted with crocus.

There are snowdrops, of course, along with some early-blooming shrubs.

On to the impossibly pretty little town of Alresford, where if you get lucky you may see the steam train chug by on the Watercress Line on your way to your garden visit.

Brandy Mount House sits just above a main street that hasn't changed much since Jane Austen last passed through. (She lived nearby.)

This isn't a particularly large garden ... none of its edges are any further than an easy stone's throw back to the main house ... but the beds, stone troughs and greenhouses were packed with snowdrops.

This was clearly, amongst all the gardens I visited, the one where the owners were going for variety of species.

There's also a small pond surrounded by ferns, snowdrops, hellebores and dogwood.

My final visit was to Bramdean House. If Alresford feels like Jane Austen should still be walking its streets, Bramdean is the kind of place her heroines would have headed to for a ball. It is the kind of mellow Georgian pile, fronted by wobbly yew hedges and backed by formal lawns sloping up to open countryside, that fuels many an architectural fantasy.

The gardens here are actually quite simple, benefiting from the weathered patina brick walls only get after a century or two.

The gates you see above lead into an orchard heavily underplanted with snowdrops, aconites and crocuses. The grass path leads through a hedge fancifully clipped as round castle walls, up to a garden folly that has the look of a temple. On either side, hurdle walls separate the greenery of the garden from the winter browns of the fields beyond.

While the central axis leading up the hill from the house was quite formal, winding paths down one side cut through a woodland garden, complete with this thatched retreat and more bulbs.

My own garden is still mostly asleep, with just one bunch of hellebores, a single clump of snowdrops and a spray of purple crocuses. While I'll never get to NGS level, it's clear. I need to work on more February interest. One thing's for sure: gardening season is almost here.

Adventures of living like a local in the French Alps

A full decade after the internet liberated me from a regular office, I still wonder at the marvel of flexible working. Through the magic of quick flights and broadband, two weeks ago I seamlessly switched my workplace from my office above a garage in Basingstoke to a dining room table overlooking the Alpine splendours of Lake Annecy. Without missing a step at work, I could spend 10 days helping a friend recovering from surgery and shoulder some of the responsibility for my 9-year-old godson.

When I signed up for the gig, I'd imagined a winter wonderland. I liberated my snowboots from storage for the first time since our 2014/15 Iceland trip. Sadly, whether the result of global warming or a freak mild spell, I was to be mostly disappointed. The majority of my stay resembled what we've endured in Southern England all winter: cloudy, grey and around 5c/40f. Gloom is, however, somewhat more palatable when you're sitting in a bowl of dramatic Alpine peaks. With admirable timing, the one stretch of clear weather came with the rare blue-super moon. (Moons are blue when they are full for the second time in the same month, and super when they reach their closest possible point to the Earth.)

Though I did have one weekend to play, the visit featured little sightseeing or dining out. This was truly going native: when not working I was on school runs, daily grocery shopping, helping with homework, cooking and binge-watching Netflix. If you want to know more about the tourist scene, search "Annecy" on this blog for earlier reports. Instead, here are some random observations about real life in Alpine France.

Call me Auntie Mame
Being an aunt (and, in this case, godmother) is a magnificent role. You get to do all the spoiling, earning exalted status as provider of treats and becoming confidant as the insider without the responsibility for discipline. You're generally rewarded with best behaviour: a kid as smart as my godson is not going to endanger this gravy train with tantrums. I discovered that nine is a particularly glorious age. He's starting to be grown up enough to have a decent conversation, but he's still young enough to cuddle. We went on a Lego voyage of discovery. I observed his prowess on scooter at the skate park and on skis up a mountain. I did my bit for American cultural imperialism, teaching him to blow bubbles out of his gumball (I was excellent at this, he informed me, because as an American I had been "in training all my life") and sing Take Me Out to The Ballgame. Satisfyingly, he believes the official words include "root, root, root for the Cardinals". I let him ride in the front seat and make movies with my iPhone.

In return, I'm hoping he'll someday be smuggling premium gin into my nursing home and springing me for the odd cultural excursion. He's starting well. And growing up in France doesn't hurt. How many nine-year-olds do you know who, as the clock strikes 6, respectfully ask you and his mother if you "would care for an aperitif" before dinner?

The art of deferred concentration
I've always wondered at the energy and resilience of working mothers. I discovered yet another of their astonishing skills this trip: a particular discipline of will when it comes to concentration. My most productive hours are generally from about 3pm to 7pm. Once I down tools, I collapse. On this trip, my temporary duties included the afternoon school run. I had to break concentration at 4pm, tearing away from full engagement in something weighty. An hour and a half later, after hijinx with the kid and the required grocery shopping, it was time to end the break and get back to work. I found it an agonising effort, and I didn't always succeed. And yet, I realised, this is how most mums I know live their lives, able to switch work on and off in pockets throughout the day. Respect.

Ladies who lunch
Then again, I didn't encounter too many women trying to juggle kids and the corporate rat race in Annecy. This is not for lack of skill or desire. For all of the celebrated benefits of the European Union, tax harmonisation leaves a lot to be desired. My friends' social circle is primarily comprised of English expat professionals, mostly husbands working in Geneva and wives at home. The wives are typically well-educated, dynamic and ambitious, but their tax situation leaves little profit in the kinds of freelancing or long-distance part-time best suited to their situation. Technology allows flexible working; governmental red tape doesn't.

So these brilliant women channel their efforts into their kids, each other and "gig economy" strategies that pay cash. English lessons. AirB&B. EBay trading. I rather suspect that's one reason you'll find some staggeringly good restaurants for posh lunches in the small villages around Lake Annecy. We slipped out to Le Florilège one day. Three courses at fine-dining levels of sophistication for €22. The starter of pickled cabbage rolled into dainty pieces resembling sushi showed off their leanings towards Asian/French fusion, while a main of pork tenderloin reinforced the national reputation for sauces. A simple meringue with lemon curd and raspberries no doubt helped claw a profit margin from the reasonably priced lunch, but was delicious in its simplicity. It all made me wish I had planned more time off. My wallet and my waistline disagreed.

The appeal of skiing
Growing up in Middle America, where parents usually only had two weeks of holiday a year, few families had the time to embrace both beaches and skiing. Each required long, expensive trips in opposite directions. The Ferraras were irredeemably linked to the beach. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to go on holiday to be cold. My mother found it inconceivable that people would lay out all that cash on the required gear, lift passes, etc., when the joys of the beach were essentially free once you got there. My one disastrous attempt at skiing while at university added the vice-like discomfort of ski boots, the horror of making a fool of myself in public and a take-away of aches and ugly bruises to my incomprehension. Given that experience was on a hill in central Michigan, spectacular landscape was not a mitigating factor.

No skiing fan ever brought the word that would work for me to the top of their defence list. Sun. It seems the magic is quite simple. When you drive up a mountain, you climb above the cloud line, leaving mid-winter rain and gloom behind you. Suddenly, you're basking under blazing sunshine and blue skies. This might not have seemed such a big deal before I moved to England, but after 20 winters here the unremitting gloom of England from November through March grows increasingly oppressive. It just never occurred to me that skiing would offer as good a chance for sun as a beach. Don't get me wrong: I'll still pick a coral reef over a snowy mountain every time. And you'll never find me on skis. But we had a magical walk through a snowy forest with jaw-dropping views. We ended with a sociable drink on a sunny deck watching the skiers. The local genepi was another revelation. A distinctive regional liquor distilled from wormwood, it's punishingly medicinal on its own but when added as a shot to lager makes something shandy-like, with a slightly more grown-up, bittersweet flavour and a bright green hue like something out of a Harry Potter film.

The daily shop
After 10 days of living like a native, there seemed no bigger difference between France and home than the experience of grocery shopping. In England, massive supermarkets dominate the supply chain and delivery ... at least in my neighbourhood ... is the norm. Most people do a weekly shop, supplementing with bits from smaller stores as needed. There is some move back to specialist providers for things like milk and vegetables, but this is mostly amongst the affluent and arguably the delivery-to-your-door is as important as the product.

The French still prefer to shop every day. This is a necessity, friends tell me, because while they believe the fruit, veg and meat to be of higher quality than in England, it all goes off faster. And though you'll find big supermarkets here, specialist shops still abound. Not far from my friends' is the Tomme & Beaufort, an entire shop dedicated to selling two kinds of local cheese. They also have select cabinets of local wine, dairy, charcuterie and meat, but the star is definitely those wheels of golden goodness, marketed with an attention to terroir that reminded me of fine wines. (It's true. The winter Beaufort tastes totally different from the summer version because of the difference in the grass the cows eat.) You'd think such a place would be mostly for tourists, but on a Friday night after work it was packed with locals picking up supplies for that night's fondue.

pragmatically-named

The ultimate example of the specialist shop, of course, is the bakery. The greatest tragedy in San Jorioz this winter is the shuttering of their local, which was also an impressive pastry shop and chocolatier. It's 80-year-old proprietress had finally decided to retire and nobody in the family fancied the nocturnal hours of a French baker. Despite that loss, my friends can still call in to two specialist bakeries within the distance I travel to Tesco for what they pass off as an artisan loaf. Point to France for that one.

The Crown
We don't have Netflix at home. With the mass of other viewing options my husband has bought in, the only time I've missed it is when reading reviews of The Crown. Imagine my delight at discovering that my friends had Netflix, but had somehow not managed to consume the acclaimed production. A ten-day visit, two series to get through ... let the binge watching begin!

It's as good as everyone says. As a committed royalist I was anxious. Would drama thrust the family into a bad light? Not at all. It's much like Stephen Frear's film The Queen, where real history blends with imagined insight into distinctly sympathetic and human people. No wonder, it turns out, since the writer ... Peter Morgan ... is the same on both. The casting of both actors and sets is magnificent. Perhaps my greatest joy was finding that the whole story is as much about Philip as Elizabeth. Matt Smith, who I never really warmed to as Dr. Who, is wonderful in the role, able to convey an impressive range of emotion without saying a word.

It was almost as much fun as hanging out with a nine-year-old. Now back home, I'm missing him desperately. Though I'm appreciating the quiet and the uninterrupted afternoons.