My hill:
When I say my hill, I do not of course mean this literally. I did not stomp down to the village one day in my boots, point at the peak, and say: 'That hill? I'll take it.' (Imagine if you could just put a hill on your credit card.)
I think of it as mine because it is the thing I see every day from my house. I lift my eyes up to it as I walk the dog. Even when it is obscured by cloud and weather, I know it is there, and it acts as a temporal anchor. When I was young, I could take or leave a hill. Now I move into middle age, I have a Rousseau-like passion for the miracles of the natural world. And a blue hill does feel to me like a bit of a miracle.
