High life | 7 February 2013

Gstaad 

Sir Roger Moore told the Sunday Telegraph

that he enjoys the slow pace of life in Switzerland. As do I. One cannot have too much of a snowy peak under a blue sky, any more than one can have too much of Schubert. Looking out from my bedroom window, all I can see are pine forests, rock cliffs and snow, not a bad scene for the winter blues. Yes, Nature has been degraded, with chalets being built ever higher in the mountains, but old N can take it. After a heavy snowfall everything is still, greed takes a back seat, and the only sounds one hears are those of the skis beneath one. I cross-country ski during the busy month of February, the worst time to be in Gstaad because the ‘chic’ people arrive en masse ready to party. After 55 years as an Eagle club member I am putting my name up for the committee in order to stop the barbarians at the gates. I am a long shot as some of my views are considered extreme. Such as banning non-skiers, or at least not giving them access to the good tables on the terrace. I also would like to see the old and the ugly banned from the club at weekends, but as someone pointed out, that would be self-defeating. Oh, well, I can always start my own club, which I am seriously thinking of doing. I cross-country ski in the old-fashioned manner, naturally. On parallel tracks, in the classic form as opposed to the much faster kick-glide skating motion far more popular nowadays. At times it is a long grind up meadows and small, almost level glaciers. But the going is never difficult, the surroundings always magnificent. The land, the snow and the trees swaddling the trails create pockets of solace, with the swishing of the skis making the only sound.