Excepts from an interview in Billed Bladet #10, 2012.
Det er ren ferie - It's pure holiday.
Interviewer: Annelise Weimann.
Who caught up with QMII on her annual skiing holiday in Norway.
Wearing the same outfit since the Bronze Age, an obviously delighted QMII was accompanied by two friends, Eleonore and Valentin Sibbern, a LiW, a PET officer and an officer from the Norwegian security police.
QMII is sking near Skeikampen, where she is always skiing, using the same lanes as always do, when she is not having a cosy time in the cottage. Hills and stuff is not for QMII! She prefers level stretches.
Q: Do you have to work sometimes while you are here?
QMII: "No, it's pure holiday when I'm in Norway. But that doesn't mean that there aren't things you would like to have done".
Q: You are not disturbed from home?
QMII: "Not at all. Whether the Crown Prince or Prince Joachim is Regent or Rigsforstander, I'm really on holiday".
Q: Do you still find new routes when you are out skiing?
QMII: "No, it's usually the same routes as previously. I don't go the long trips anymore, as I did once. In that way it s of course a bit limited in regards to what you can throw yourself into.
We go for trips at five, six kilometers, so that's getting modest".
Q: Would you like to take your children and grandchildren up here on a skiing holiday?
QMII: "I don't think I'm suited for that. The adults in the family predominantly ski in the hills and so do the children. And I don't do that at all, at all. So no, a communal skiing holiday for the family is not something I believe will happen".
Prince Friso is also a topic and QMII says: "It's dreadful what happened. It's a terrible tragedy. It doesn't look good. It's so tragic for the whole family, I think. You can only hope for,... no, I don't even know what to hope for now".
Q: Do you think about the danger for avalanches when you are out skiing?
QMII: "I do know the terrain and know what you don't do and we are not even getting near any menacing places. You don't talk so much about avalanches here in Norway, you talk about slides and there isn't any big danger of a slide.
But it's obvious that what happened in Austra with Prince Johan Friso can happen everywhere. But usually it isn't something I think about. Because if you know where there is a danger of slides, you find somewhere else to go skiing. But it's really dreadful what happened".
Q: Do you think about the danger of avalanches, when your sons go south to ski?
QMII: "Well, I count on them keeping their heads on also when skiing and (that they) don't do stupid things. They've got enough routine to know that routine isn't enough".
Q: Your sons have become older and perhaps more mature?
QMII: "They have, but they have the same age as Johan Friso. Yes, he has almost the exact same age as my sons".
Q: Do you know him?
QMII: "Not frightfully well, but I do know the whole family and I know exactly how old they are. The oldest is born the year before my boys, and then the three Dutch Princes come, like one two three. (*) Ours are born almost at the same time, so they are basically of similar age all of them".
Q: One of the really big events in the DRF this year was your 40th regency anniversay. How do you think that went?
QMII: "They were fantastic days. I was really enthralled/fascinated that some many people bothered to go out on the streets on a winters day. We were fortunate with the weather however and that helps. But I must say that I had never imagined that so many people would come, nor on the palace square either".
Q: For once all three balconies were in use?
QMII: "We were simply too many in order to be able to stand on one balcony. So we thought it would be more practical to split it up, so that the young stood to one side and my sisters and their husbands on the other and the Prince Consort and I in the middle. That was the most sensible division".
About Victoria and Daniel QMII said: "I've cabled the SRF and congratulated with the little Princess. It's lovely for them, really lovely.
But I haven't seen her yeat, I have only seen the pictures in the papers".
Q: When Estelle will become queen one day, there will also be a queen in Norway, Holland, Belgium and Spain".
QMII: "Yes, it's crawling, it's peculiar, but that's how it is. But for the moment we are three Queens, so it isn't that odd. You can get used to a lot of things". (**)
(*) Fantastic! I shall never ever be able to comprehend how women know how old people are. It's a computing system that is completely alien to men.
I'm often in doubt about my own age, not to mention how old my family are. But Mrs. Muhler know all these details by heart. If I have to figure out how old people are, I need to know the year whoever was born and then calculate the age.
Mrs. Muhler figure that out within seven nanoseconds! Using incongreous reference points like the year after cousin so and so's anniversary, her mother's age minus seven years. And I just sit there: Yeah okay.
(**) That's a typical QMII retort.