Unfolded on your floor or pinned to a wall, a paper map can be way more than just a tool, becoming something of personal significance. If you're a hill geek like us then you may have a particular favourite, and in this series we hear about a few. Here's Sharon Kennedy, mapping her age, not her shoe size. 

Landranger 41 - Ben Nevis

Being asked to choose a favourite map is a little like being required to pick a favourite child. Luckily I don't have children, and the other maps won't be offended that I have gone for OS Landranger 41.

Summit bagging dreams were on hold for lockdown, but if you have a map then you can always enjoy imaginative adventures. It's like a book where you write the stories.

This is an awesome map which includes some the most iconic hills and views in Scotland. However, the reason for my choice is based on something else. Landranger 41 represents the first in the series of what has become known in the Kennedy-Uney household as #Birthdaymap, a challenge which evolved over an evening of map gazing. The concept is simple; for your birthday you obtain the Landranger map corresponding to the number of that birthday. Then you set yourself the target of climbing all the Munros, Corbetts and Grahams on that map before your next birthday.

It's the perfect gift for any outdoor enthusiast that doesn't need another woolly hat! But while some people manage to remain active into later life, it has to be said that thanks to Landranger's north-south numbering system this is predominantly a Scottish Highlands game. Walkers in their seventies might enjoy getting to know the Southern Uplands, but you'd be knockign at the door of your ninth decade before you'd got to the Wainwrights.

The fun starts as soon as you have your hands on your new map (or earlier if you have an extensive map collection like ours), bringing together my love of maps, and my love of highlighters and permanent markers in a range of colours. Mark up all your summits and start planning your routes.

My ambitions for 41 got off to a fantastic start. But it clearly wasn't going to be easy, especially from a base in Cumbria. After all, there are 39 Munros, 15 Corbetts and 15 Grahams on this one sheet alone, including the classics on the Ring of Steall, Aonach Eagach and Buachaille Etive Mor, not forgetting the biggest of all - the mighty Ben Nevis. Map 41 packs a lot into its 40x40km.

Not wanting to wait to get started I jumped the gun and set off three days early with Sgorr na Ciche. You might know this one by another name; get the map out and find it!

One day ahead of schedule, Buachaille Etive Beag and the Munros of Stob Dubh and Stob Corie Raineach took my count up to three.

Finally the day of my actual birthday came around, and I was in for a treat; Bidean nam Bian and Stob Coire Sgreamhach with the best mixed weather day that Scotland could muster for me – sunshine, rain, snow, hail and a little bit of a breeze. Starting this challenge in autumn was a great reminder to always buy waterproof maps.

Sadly, this was late autumn 2020 and the very next day, the second coronavirus lockdown for England was announced, heralding the arrival of the winter of "you shall not go anywhere". Though my summit bagging dreams were to be on hold for a while, if you have a map then you can always enjoy imaginative adventures. When confined to home for any reason, open a map and explore – get your tongue around the gaelic place names, ponder on the long-distance trails (Map 41 has one end or the other of two national trails), wonder at what the Parallel Roads in Glen Roy are, and then make plans to go and find out. A map is like a book where you write the stories.

So go take a look, see where this year's number might take you, embrace the new places and adventures this may lead to. If, like me, you fail to complete the challenge, then at least you ought to be able to say that you had fun trying. And the next birthday brings a whole new set of opportunities, plus a little unfinished business from the year before.

The great thing about these endeavours is that roughly speaking things should get easier with age - at least until you get to England. There can't be many challenges where that is true. I wonder if I'll still be walking the hills by the time my home map, number 90, comes around?