At the ripe old age of 62, it was well overdue that I should finally lose my virginity and who better to lose it to than the queen of bagging, Anne Bunn? Anne had been pestering me for over a decade to attend a Marhof dinner and eventually had her way with me at Ardfern in June 2015. As with all such first encounters, it passed in a blur and ended with the confidence-shattering line 'I did not realise you had come'. At least it was not Anne who uttered this blow to my self-esteem, but Alan Dawson when he realised he had omitted me from his announced list of debutants.
Nevertheless, I progressed beyond a one-night-stand and spent the following week in a cottage with Anne and five other baggers. The day after the dinner gave me my best Marilyn outing of the year when we sailed over to Scarba. Not only did I collect the Marilyn and all the Tumps in the excellent company of Campbell Singer, but it reduced my fear of small boats after the aborted Ailsa Craig nightmare I wrote of a year ago. However, I am not brave enough to show up in Girvan whatever seductive promises are made.
My relatively modest Marilyn total for 2015 indicates that my true affections still lie elsewhere. Much larger increases in the Hump and Tump tables (+678) confirm I am concentrating on absolute height rather than relativity, in particular Dodds. I collected 227 of these in 2015 but will never match that total again, having now summited all those within a day trip of Edinburgh. My Simms total is unlikely to increase further as the remaining five (four on Skye and The Cobbler South Peak) all require the use of a rope. Outwith Scotland, I completed the English and Welsh Dodds (except Great Links Tor) and am now making inroads into the English and Welsh 400m hills.
