Just four weekends left to catch this golden show at the British Museum

One of the benefits of my new membership at the British Museum, I've just discovered, is fast track entry into major exhibits.  No pre-booking, no stopping by a desk to get tickets.  Just wave your card and you're in.  A speedy convenience that allowed me to pop into a show I'd been wanting to see after a doctor's appointment earlier this week.  Too late, practically, to go back to the office.  Just enough time to slip into "Beyond El Dorado:  Power and Gold in Ancient Columbia."


You, however, are likely to need to plan your culture into your weekends, so note that you have only four left before this dazzling display heads back to Bogata.

We all know the stories of the avaricious Spaniards plundering South America for its gold.  Frankly, it's a miracle there's any of it left.  That feeling will be magnified when you see the delicacy of the objects here.  Their wafer thin sheets and fine filagree work would get crushed in the standard jewellery box, much less in some panicked bid to hide them from conquest.

Most of the items on display here are ritual figures:  human, animal or a spooky hybrid of both.  Like the bat man who features on the exhibit posters (below); far more impressive to my eyes than the super hero!  The smallest are the size of your pinkie, the largest masks that might cover the human face.  But on the whole, you're going to be looking with rapt fascination at little details.  I was relieved there were few others in the show; you need to have your nose up against the display cases to really appreciate what you're seeing.

It's all a delight to just gawp at, not much different than window gazing at an exotic jewellery store.  But there's also an educational subtext here, and it's worth reading the displays to get it.  These were ritual objects, produced to further men's interaction with the gods.  The penultimate room of the exhibit does best at getting this across.

Many of the objects are trays and containers used to take ritual drugs, or representations of the animals the users felt they communed with when under the influence.  The exhibition designers have screened images of real jungle animals on a scrim hanging at the back of the dark room, and filled the twilight air with jungle and animal sounds.  The only real light comes from the illumination of the gold objects.  It's all marvellously creepy.  Easy to see both how these figures … with a little help from the coca leaf … could take people to a spirit world, and how the Spaniards could feel no guilt at melting any of them down.  They would have seen a perfectly good material being used for paganism and drug use.

The pre-colonisation Columbians, we learn, did not see gold as having any value beyond the spiritual.  The Spaniards, of course, saw cold, hard cash.  Turn the tables, and it would be like some alien descending on Europe with an insatiable taste for the stained glass in our churches, because for him it was money.  What a tragic train wreck of cultures.

We can only be thankful that these beautiful bits and pieces survived for our inspection.  You can check them out until 23 March.

Reading's Nirvana taps into the spirit of the original Roman spas

Whatever corner of the ancient Roman world I'm exploring, I'm always drawn to the baths.

My experience says they're dependable for grandeur, from Aida staged in Rome's Baths of Caracalla to the jaw-dropping mosaics at Ostia Antica to the glorious Mediterranean seaside setting of the ruins in Carthage.  Or maybe its that connection to the human experience.  I can imagine businessmen doing a deal in the steamy chambers at Pompeii, the provincials of Bath searching for sophistication in the architecture that would eventually give name to their city or Germans seeking refuge from the nasty weather in the gracious complex in Trier.  But most of all, I think it's just my own bath envy.

I can imagine few leisure complexes more glorious than a vast sprawl of pools of varying temperatures (caldarium for the hot plunge, frigidarium for the cold, tepidarium for lingering) with large libraries, lounging spaces and spots for massages and workouts.  All within sumptuous, let's-outdo-the-next-town architecture.

I suspect that whoever built Nirvana in Reading shared my enthusiasm, for its six pools, all filled with water from its own spring, make it the most water-based spa I've visited.  And the architecture, awash with classical columns and statuary, clearly looks back to the Roman bathing tradition.  I've mentioned it here a few times in the past, but having just visited for the first time since they concluded some major renovation works, the time seemed right for a more detailed entry.

Nirvana is a sprawling complex radiating outwards from a central pool which would, in our ancient Roman model, be the tediparium.  The modern-day space (pictured above) evokes ancient grandeur with stately Doric columns around, and a coffered ceiling above, the large, rectangular, blue-tiled pool, framed on each end by palm trees.  The space is filled with light thanks to glass-filled arches on three sides.  One looks into a sizeable restaurant, washed with its own natural brightness through a skylight at the apex of a ceiling resembling the underside of a step pyramid.  The long side of the tepidarium room looks over a garden with an outdoor pool, four jacuzzis and some attractive landscaping, with a faux Roman temple at its centre and classical-style statuary dotted about.  The Roman feel is completed on the back wall, where the outward-facing arches are mirrored by tromp l'oeil frescos within stone frames that give us views of formal Italian gardens and landscape beyond.  I tend to base myself on one of the lounge chairs here, swimming a bit and drifting between my two other favourite spots.

The first would be our caldarium, known at Nirvana as the Surf Room.  Here, another generously-sized pool is filled with hot water, this time enhanced by all sorts of jets.  By making a full circuit you can pummel your lower back, shoulders, stomach, the bottom of your feet, or anything else you want to move into position.  You can even lie on a couch of bubbles along the pool's central island.  There are two small cold plunge pools here, though to my taste the water's only pleasantly warm and not hot enough to need the chilly refresher.  The mural artist went to work here, as well, but in this room we abandon the classical world for views of tropical beaches, sailing ships and parrots, while a bronze sailfish jumps proudly from the centre of the pool.

When I've had enough of water, there's a lounge room that whisks you to North Africa.  Here, a gurgling Moorish fountain and heavily scented candles set the central scene.  Radiating from that are pedestals curved for lounging (elevated knees and back), covered with small blue and white tiles and heated.  Any noise besides the fountain is strictly prohibited; I've enjoyed many a blissful nap here.

Besides those favourite spots, there's another pool for lounging about, one with jets specifically for swimming, a big indoor jacuzzi, a tropical shower and a big sauna and steam room.  And a gym with top-end equipment.  All of this comes with admission, no spa treatments required.  Which makes it, in my opinion, the best spa I've been to for simply loafing about.  Clearly their intention, as Nirvana has a membership structure that encourages this.  I pay £22 a month by direct debit for a membership that allows six full-day visits a year; a steal compared to the minimum £95 a day you'd pay off the street.

There are, of course, all the treatments of a traditional spa for an additional fee structure, and the recent renovations have just completed a new suite of rooms for that.  (By tearing down the old rooms, they've increased the size of the main restaurant and improved traffic flow around the place.)  In addition to the usual manis, pedis and massages, Nirvana is unique … to my experience … in its Dead Sea flotations.

The round Celestial Pool has 600 tonnes of Dead Sea salt dissolved within it, with a slow, gentle, but constant circular current.  For a quite reasonable £17 extra you get to float in here for half an hour, your body remarkably buoyant from the salt.  (You must book in advance as they limit sessions to about six people.) Again, they've done a beautiful job with the decor in here, with frescos of signs of the zodiac on the walls and a dome above the pool pinpricked with lights to give you the feeling, once they turn the main lights down and the spa music up, that you're outdoors, looking at the night sky.

If I can't have a full reconstruction of the baths of Caracalla, Nirvana gets pretty close.  They could stand to turn up the heat in the hot pools, and I'd like to see the library of magazines increased with more home, garden and cooking titles.  I look forward to the day the hedges grow high enough around the garden to block out the modern building across the car park, deepening that Roman illusion.  It might even be fun to put the staff in classical tunics with a few laurel wreaths for management.  We could stop, however, at serving roasted dormice or sending slave children underground to stoke the heating system.  There are a few things, after all, that are best left in the ancient world.

Entertaining year begins with a pig and duck comfort food double bill

"You live to eat, and I eat to live," a very thin and supercilious woman once said to me.

I was hurt and ashamed at the time, but those feelings quickly grew into rage.  How could she?  And then the rage mellowed to pity.  What a pale, pitiful life, if food is no more than a fuel source.  So much joy, discovery, creativity and delight eliminated from the human experience.

Sure, I wish I was thin.  Thin ... er.  I wish I didn't spend my life battling between the love of creating and eating fine food, and my inability to get into "normal" sized clothes or jog a few miles with agile abandon.  But I think I have the better end of this argument.  I will continue to fight to keep things in some sort of balance, but will not do so at the expense of serving up an exquisite meal to good friends.

Because life is short.  And that lady who ate to live?  She's already dead.

These reflections come from the afterglow of our first party of the year.  And our first Sunday lunch, breaking the mould of our usual Saturday night extravaganzas.  We noticed no real difference in the amount of effort or the time taken from the weekend; only a decrease in the (otherwise prodigious) consumption of alcohol.  And a decrease in laundry, as we tend to end up with lots of house guests on a Saturday night.

It being February, we were still in hearty comfort food mode, and my francophile husband designed the menu.  First up, pork rilletes.  (Pictured above.)  I hadn't realised just how easy this French country staple was.  As long as you have the time for the slow cooking.  Yesterday, the whole house was infused with an overpowering funk of porcine goodness,  A noble pig's belly rendered down to tender shreds.  To be served up today in little pots beside a tart rocket salad, cornichons and pickled onions.  Unable to decide on our wine match we sampled three white options, but the table's consensus came down on a delightful Gruner Veltliner.

On to roast duck from Tom Kerridge's Proper Pub Food.  My husband gave me this cookbook for Christmas because I am always bemoaning how rubbish I am at producing Anglo-Saxon classics.  (I will continue to try, but my soul will never understand why anyone would bother with roast meats and potatoes when there is pasta and pan-fried veal scallopine in the world.)  Tom's duck with a slight Asian influence is very good, the accompanying potato pancakes were stunning.  We swapped out cabbage for the recipe's little gem lettuce because that's what was in our Riverford Organics delivery box and we're all about seasonality chez Bencard.  (And we couldn't face a special trip to the grocery store for one item.)  This went with a shocker of a red wine:  Bulgarian pinot noir.  Our local shop and usual suppliers, Caviste, suggested this and they were spot on.  Fabulous, and half the price of an equivalent French red.

I turned to Tom again for the sweet course, a lemon posset so easy I almost wish I hadn't discovered it.  Tempting enough to get yourself into real trouble should you happen to have double cream, lemons and sugar in the house.  I matched that not with Tom's suggested fennel biscotti but with lemon and poppyseed lollypops.  First, because I have an excess of poppy seeds I really need to work through. Second because I bought one of those "cake pops" pans last year and hadn't used it.  Thought I should.

The verdict?  Even for a foodie who's unfazed by the prospect of whipping out her pastry bag for a bit of piping, the hassle outweighs the benefit.  It was a novel serving idea to have people pluck their own bite-sized globes of cake from the central display, but doing mini cakes in muffin pans would have been  a third of the effort for the same taste.  Whatever the presentation, the light lemon duo after the two manly, meaty courses worked well.

And now, we just have to do the dishes and get ready for the work week ahead.  Six days 'til we're hosting eight for an Ireland-England Rugby themed dinner party on Saturday.  That's just he way we roll chez Bencard.

We don't necessarily eat to live.  We live to live.  In all its glorious, celebratory variety.  I can't imagine that picture without great food and wine. Carpe Diem.

The Monuments Men entertain, but fall short of potential

I desperately wanted to love The Monuments Men.  A film of a book I devoured.  All about the salvation of European fine art; a subject I treasure.  Set in locations I enjoy.  With George Clooney and Matt Damon to thrill the eyes and John Goodman and Bill Murray to make me laugh.  What could go wrong?

Quite a lot, actually.

The film is caught between its natural inclination to be a serious art house piece and a commercial push towards all-American blockbuster.  What should be most compelling is the horror of cultural loss; respect for these middle aged men, who could easily have sat out the war but instead risked (and is some cases lost) their lives; and amazement at how they managed to accomplish their mission with no resources and little official backing.  That's all there, but it just doesn't hit the emotional mark.

Instead, the best bits of the film are comic.  There are sparkling little scenes of witty banter.  The cast plays off each other well and often look like they're having fun.  You enjoy it, but can't help thinking this is just Clooney re-making Ocean's Eleven in WW2.  And, let's face it, for anyone my age, all Bill Murray has to do to get laughs is to put on an Army uniform.  The soldier he played in Stripes was stirring under that uniform throughout.

A bit of comic relief is great, but there was too much here.  Some perplexingly unecessary.  Matt Damon's character was closely based on real Monuments Man James Rorimer, an erudite and highly cultured man who'd studied and lived in Paris.  Yet we felt the need to dredge up all the old stereotypical jokes of the Anglo-Saxon who can't speak French.  A Francophile curator of the Met acting like a country boy in Paris just made no sense.

There are strange discontinuities like this throughout the film.  Scenes supposedly set in the French countryside are blatantly, thanks to their distinctive architecture, filmed in the south of England.  Damon's character, when we first meet him, is restoring a fresco portrait on the underside of a Roman arch; a strange combo I don't know to exist and an odd choice for someone who was supposed to specialise in the Middle Ages.  It's been a while since I've been to Bruges, but I'm pretty sure that magnificent Gothic cathedral ... quite central in the plot ... does not have a massive Baroque organ and choir loft.  The Jeu de Paume, another critical location in the story, is an instantly recognisable Parisian museum that most visitors will have walked by.  (You know it: the long, narrow one on the corner of the Tuileries Gardens at the Concorde Metro stop.)  In the film it is most obviously not the Jeu de Paume.  Turns out, with strange irony, a museum in Berlin stood in!

Accuse me of being pedantic, but this is a film about art history.  It's going to draw people like me.  And the same people who are passionate about paintings and sculpture are going to notice these things.

It's not a bad film.  It's entertaining, moves with a good pace, sheds light on a bit of history that deserves more attention and does its job on the "feel good movie" front.  But it falls far short of its potential.  You won't miss much if you miss the film.  But you really should read the book.  It's fabulous.

Snowdrops at The Vyne, Butterflies at Wisley offer respite from winter

What a grim start to the year.  According to UK Met Office statistics, our local area got between 250% and 300% more rain than the average; the wettest January in England since 1910.  There were fewer than 40 hours of sunshine in the entire month.

No wonder we greeted February with joy, especially when its first weekend brought two days of clear skies.  I had to get outside and drink in that hope that spring was coming.  Fortunately, there were great options nearby.  The local National Trust property is swimming in snowdrops and, even if it had been raining, the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens at Wisley are offering a tropic excursion under glass.

Of course, the glass houses at Wisley are always there to offer refuge and lush greenery.  At the moment, there are some special guests.

I have no idea how they've done it, but for a limited time they've filled the tropical part of this horticultural cathedral with hosts of butterflies.  You spot them the moment you push through the strips of rubber shielding the doorway.  Black, white, brown, yellow and startling blue, they flit through the air so effortlessly they seem more like bits of paper tossed on the wind than living creatures.  You can never photograph those, they move ceaselessly and with madcap speed.

Yet slow down and peer between the leaves, and you'll spot them at rest.  Attune your eyes.  Concentrate.  Look past the oversized leaves, cascading orchids and showy hot pink floral spikes, and you'll spot something even more beautiful.  Some rest with their wings opened flat, others with wings proud above and behind, and most … once settled … remain still and oblivious to the hoards of gawping humans.

It's a photographers delight.  There were plenty of us looking for the right shot and the perfect angle while enjoying the views and the sun.  But the real focus here is the kids.  If I had any, I'd make it a priority to get them here.  The show organisers have done a great job of putting informative boards throughout.  There are cool and rather creepy oversized chrysalis sculptures; in the room next door you can see the real things and learn about the creatures' life cycles.  Kids can have their faces painted as their favourite butterfly before setting off in search of it.  And I can't imagine a better way to develop observational skills.  The under-12s were quivering with concentration as they sought out the star attractions.

The butterflies are there until 9 March (how they get them all out by a certain date, I have no idea) and the show is part of normal garden admission.  Which means RHS members get in free.  A fabulous, weather-proof idea for these sodden days.

Rain-free skies are more useful for a ramble around The Vyne with the dogs, though not completely necessary.  Our local stately home (less than two miles across the fields, more than five by car) is unusual in allowing dogs up close to the house.  They're so often relegated to NT park and woodland.  At The Vyne you can follow a circular, paved path from the car park, through gardens, around the house, up to a bridge over the river, through a bit of woodland, and back along the river to return to the car.  Delightful views, a good ramble, but the dogs can stay mud free.  Which has been a real challenge recently.

At the moment, this walk is made even better by drifts of snowdrops.  Those classically English heralds of spring remind us, even when winter is at its worst, that our gardens will soon be returning to life and colour.  Our walk was blessed with clement temperatures and vivid blue skies, showing off the magnificent contrast of those stark white flowers against the deep forest greens.

Almost as wonderful on the eye was the abundance of water fowl.  It's good to see someone enjoying the deluge.  The Vyne has some lovely water meadows spreading beside its river; the kind of landscape that, if we had more of it, would probably prevent much of the current flooding.  On Sunday the water sparkled like glass between its gaily waving beds of reeds.  Ducks, geese, swans and others played, chased, splashed and squawked with abandon.

The spaniels, who normally chase any bird out of our garden the moment it lands, weren't interested.  There were too many of them.  They were so happy being outside without getting drenched, nothing else mattered.  Happy dogs, happy birds, happy human.

Internal solar batteries recharged, I was ready to face another grey, rainy week.