Yes, I think we’ve all watched Pinsent and Redgrave powering along in their little boats and thought “That’s very impressive” or “I wonder if I could do that” or perhaps “I’m off down the gym to have a go on the rowing machine” and then probably dismissed the idea as less interesting than going to the pub.

But not Neil at CK. No, Neil is a bit obsessed with it all and after making a rather daft bet with Gareth at The Lodge he’s preparing to row the length of Lake Geneva. Yes, that’s about 76 km. So on 15th of August 2010 (weather permitting) he’ll row the length of it in one day – it’s about 35 times further than they row in the Olympics, like rowing from Brighton to London (but only if there was a lake than went from one to the other).

Now, crucially this is going to be racing against Gareth who is also a bit of a fitness maniac (when he’s not dancing around Rockbah with his shirt off – yes G, we all saw) and Gareth will be on his road bike trying to do a lap around the lake (about 175km) in the time it takes Neil to row the length.

This too is a pretty hefty undertaking…

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

And the reason for all this exercise? Well, charity – St Mungos, the homeless charity. So if you want to help out and make a donation please go to:

www.justgiving.com/Neil-Aherne

The whole slightly insane challenge also has a big thank you to say to Zac Purchase, the British Olympic Gold Medalist at Beijing, who donated a boat which Neil might actually be a little bit in love with. Unhealthy perhaps but it is – apparently – the Ferrari Enzo of boats. A sleek nine feet of carbon fibre that weighs just 10 kilos.

Anyway, a great cause, two great lads and we’ll keep you posted… The event is planned for August 15th although we’ll see what the weather does. And you’ll be delighted to hear the Verbier based members of Performance are busy trying to get seats on the support boats, partly because we want to be there to cheer on Neil, and partly because one is designated as the ‘Party Boat’ so should be quite entertaining…

Meanwhile if you ever wondered what all the fuss was about Lake Geneva, these snaps should answer your questions – a stunning place to spend Monday evening…

I might have mentioned before the Swiss propensity to celebrate things with cheese and alcohol, and on 26 September 1993 they voted to have another one. Swiss National Day. So every year on 1st August. That’s how it works here – you just ask everyone if they want another bank holiday and, amazingly, everyone said yes…

Now, despite the fact that the weather went from stunning blue skies to cloudy to rumbles of thunder to complete monsoon, the Swiss didn’t let that stop them from having a proper party. And a parade. And – as is the custom here – a full marching brass band.

So we went and helped them out – fortuitously taking cover underneath the canopy of The Pub Mont Fort’s bar. And despite the weather it all went rather well and looked a bit like this…

Kat and Don doing model poses:                   The rain arrives:                                             The band carries on regardless:

|

|

They even seem to enjoy it:                            Finally a load of local kids with lanterns swim past:

I had a great text from a mate in London this week: “So what are you actually doing in Switzerland when there’s no snow?”.

His understandable points were what do you do (see our previous blog on this classic ski instructor question), how do you make ends meet and isn’t it a bit dull.

And it made me laugh a bit because I got it when I turned on my phone back on after getting off a flight to Geneva which approached along the lake, taking in epic views of the snow on all the peaks over 3000 meters – from the Bernese Oberland across to Mont Blanc.

(The picture above hardly does it justice but click on it and you can zoom into it and pick stuff out).

Best of all though, the Grand Combin (that’s the really big mountain on the other side of the valley from Verbier – you know, the one with the slanty glacier on top) stood out like a sore thumb – fresh snow on the summit and the biggest one for miles around… You can just see it here, next to the wing tip:

And I sat in my seat like a grinning idiot, brimming with excitement and just stupidly happy to be coming back. So when I got that text from Lee it seemed to underline why it’s amazing to be in the mountains at any time of year. It’s an amazing place, in a brilliant (if a bit quirky and cheese-obsessed) corner of the world.

And, to underline this, when I got off the bus to Verbier, the fact that it seemed appropriate that it was the warm up for Swiss National Day – basically yet another reason for the Swiss to have a party, eat cheese and drink white wine.

Which made it somehow more perfect, and is also the reason I’m typing this with what feels like a pair of knitting needles behind my eyes.

So are there better places to live? Yup. Probably. But why on earth would you bother looking for them when you can be here?

It’s a natural question to ask isn’t it?

You’re talking to someone who’s fundamentally only doing a job for the winter. You’d ask a the bloke who drives a road-gritting lorry the same question. You’d ask the guy at the lift station (if lifties didn’t carry such an air of grumpy unapproachability). And you certainly ask a Ski instructor. Or a reindeer. Or Santa’s elves. Or perhaps our Kato.

So what are we doing?

Well, in an ideal world we’d all be sitting in the sunshine on the T-Bar terrace getting sun-burnt, but in this far from ideal world we all disappear off for a moderately nomadic few months.

So Nicol’s dashing between his building project in Le Chable and work all over the UK, Kent’s off touring round Sweden running the family catering business with Jenny and bringing his winning smile to the world of hotdogs and beef burgers.

Olly (who’s thirty today – wish him a happy birthday if you get chance) is off to New Zealand to teach out there for the Southern Hemisphere winter. Rich and Gina are back painting houses (and Rich is probably skiving off a lot to play golf).

Toby’s manning the office and taking Laika for walks in a rather soggy Verbier, Westy’s cooking in the dungeon beneath T-Bar and I’m in an equally rainy Amsterdam writing ads for Heineken (the research is killing me…).

But despite the fact that summer is only just beginning (well, it’s supposed to be here now but seems a wee bit delayed) our conversation’s already turned to winter 2010/2011, pre-season training, new skis and what colour uniforms we should be wearing.

Maybe if the sun decides to grace us with it’s presence we’ll get the bikes out and try not to wish away summer again. But it’s snowing up top today and you can’t help wonder what the glacier’s looking like in Saas Fee…

It reminds me of a quote by Chris Laidlaw, a Kiwi journalist. He was writing about  Rugby, but I’ll plagiarize it a bit here…

“[Skiing] may have many problems, but the gravest of them is undoubtedly that of the persistence of summer.”

Not long left now though – only four and a half months before TeleVerbier think about starting the lifts at the weekends…

Yup, been in the UK and really not too upset to be back in Verbier. Apart from the fact it’s raining. But whilst Toby and I were taking in the delights of Gatwick airport we noticed this sign – is it possible BAA are slightly out of touch with snowsports? And we don’t wnow if this means you can’t put snowboards on it or if snowboards and “skiboards” are the same thing…

It’s absolutely chucking it down in town but it’s just turning to snow somewhere above Marmotte.

Now normally that’s the kind of tantilising news that makes us hope the snowline  will drop and we’ll get some in town, but it’s May and frankly I’d be quite happy if the clouds, the rain and the snow all disapeared and we got some quality sunshine in thankyou very much.