Gstaad
From my desk facing the garden I look out on a vista of wooded green hills with an unblemished blue background. Far beyond, the mountains are grey and white-capped on top. The sun is blazing, the cows are grazing, and I have to leave this paradise for karate and judo training in the Bagel. Plus I have a broken fourth finger on each hand, as if turning 73 wasn’t enough. But I’ve been mountain climbing, and I’m in good shape despite the boozing. The Ionian had purple hills and beautiful seas but this outstrips them all. There is nothing like mountain scenery when there’s an orgy of nature bursting all around. (Or any other kind of orgy, for that matter.)
Ruskin was raving a bit when he accused climbers of having ‘made racecourses of the cathedrals of the earth, the Alps’.
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