Last of the year, and Marsden saw it out, which felt right then and feels right now — the register started near Marsden in 2009 and the place has never let a year go entirely quiet since. Left boot, black, stiff with frost, laces gone, on the field edge off Old Mount Road. Hard frost and clear, the sort of December morning that pays you for getting up.
A frozen boot is a particular thing. It holds its shape like it's been asked to, and the frost sits in the creases white. Three photographs, two came out, which for December were a good rate. Flask conditions good.
The book then does its end-of-year sums: eighteen for 2017, noted at the back of the notebook, 'and that were that'. I did the count at the back of every book in them years, one line, no ceremony. Eighteen were a fair year — more driving east than usual, the Emley business in October, two from Farnley Tyas of all places, and the stool in its second season and earning its keep. I closed Notebook 4 not long after and started the next one in the same blue biro. That were 2017.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.