Cir Mhor

No, I've not been out climbing, not today. Too much champagne this week to take on a proper hill - and maybe too many years under the belt? Hope not. But I have a reason for this photo, a reason which is compatible with my octave of celebration. The tiny silver pendant in its box is the present J gave me to mark our 50 years together, and I chose it in a thoroughly modern manner. 

The mountain in the photo, replicated in miniature on the triangular pendant, is Cir Mhor, at the head of Glen Rosa on Arran. Although its distinctive shape had been familiar to me all my sentient years (Arran holidays from the age of 9 months), it was well on in our married life that I first climbed it instead of admiring it from Goatfell. Its summit is the size of our dining room table, and is reached by a final, satisfying little scramble (hands and feet, briefly). There's just enough space for two or three people to sit down and eat their sandwiches in the traditional "lunch on the summit" manner. I love it.

I love it so much that when I was scrolling through Instagram and saw that someone had made a brooch with Cir Mhor on it, I left a comment to the effect that I would love a pendant to that design, and back came the reply that the artist - Jess MacDonald - did in fact make such a thing. A couple of friendly emails and it was ordered; a week later it arrived, a delicate thing of beauty with all the associations I could wish for. 

The background photo was taken on my last visit to Arran, when we hiked to the Saddle at the head of Glen Rosa last May. Every time I look down the Firth and see the outline of the Arran hills blue in the distance, I long to be there, in the hills that I first climbed among when I was six. 

So: a less bibulous blip for the penultimate day of the Golden Octave...