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The summit at last!

Last month I did something I should have done 25 years ago: climb the Ste Victoire. To live in Aix and not do that is like living in Athens and never visiting the Acropolis. Never mind the 28,764,319 people who've climbed it before me, it still felt like an achievement.

It isn't difficult. Steep in parts, to be sure, but the path is practically a motorway and in 90 minutes you're there. I was with Bruce, an old Scottish friend from my school days who visits regularly; this was his fifth ascent. My daughter must have been up it a dozen times at least. And Magali Rousseau has lost count of the number of times she's done it. So you could say I have no excuse. You could even call me a sloth.

I shall retort with the astounding fact that the great man himself, Paul Cézanne, who painted the Ste Victoire 82 times (I'm  not kidding), never found it necessary to admire the view from the top. You see? It's like a Christmas tree - better contemplated than climbed.

All the same, it felt good to have done it, so I thought the moment deserved to be captured for posterity. This, believe it or not, was another first for me - a selfie. You might wonder why I look like a discombobulated turtle: it's because I couldn't figure out how to swivel the screen into selfie mode, so I'm fumbling for the button on the other side of the phone.

Before Cézanne, the Sainte Victoire was just an anonymous rock. Now, thanks to him, it can be seen in Washington, New York, London, Amsterdam, Moscow, Tokyo... I'm not one for bucket lists, but I've formed the fanciful project of seeing all 82 paintings before I die. In which case, I'd better get cracking - no time to lose!

On the other hand, why bother? After all, I can just stay at home and climb the real thing.