๐๏ธ Mountain Days ๐๏ธ
My favourite day of 2023 so far...
This image was taken on 2nd January 2023. I was with a friend, walking
back home after a wintery trip to the summit of Ben Macdui. (A modest
hill of 1,309m located in the Cairngorms, Scotland๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ.)
The walk was an other-worldly winter wonderland. The hills covered in a
perfect blanket of snow, were contrasted by the turquoise, blues and
pinks hues of the sky. The moon, almost full, was visible as an almost
perfect white circle in the sky throughout the day.
We walked from the summit as the sun began to set. A very Scottish,
January sunset time of 3:39pm. The sky turned from glorious winter day,
to pink, to ultramarine. The planets, then stars joined the moon in the
sky.
We walked downhill, watching lights in the distance. Up high,
head-torches meandering down. Out north, the three repeating tell-tale
lights of the Tarbet Ness lighthouse. We kept our own head-torches off,
preferring the rare company of our moon shadows, walking with us in the
snow.
A magical moment I'll never forget.
A little bit about me...
In terms of self expression, writing things down is not one of my
strengths. However, I do appreciate artist and writers who can put to
paper what I feel. One of my favourite writers is Nan Shepherd. Her
book, The Living Mountain, is a love letter to the Cairngorms. I read it
and feel extremely lucky to call Scotland home and the Cairngorms my
playground too.
For my birthday this year, I received a beautiful limited edition copy
of The Living Mountain with artwork by Rose Strang. I love these
paintings and how brilliantly the artist has captured the words in the
book and turned them to visual art.
You can see a preview film of the artworks here.