The second Saddleworth outing of the year, on account of the first one going so well, and the deepest walk-in of 2018. Right boot, black, very weathered, laces perished — a winter or two on it at least, I wrote, and I'd made that judgement carefully, off the state of the leather rather than off any wish for it to be dramatic. Up the Chew Valley above Dovestone, on the flat rocks by the track.
It's a long walk in, and the notebook records that I brought the stool because I had a feeling about it. I want to be straight about what that means, because it can sound like mysticism written down. It isn't. A feeling about it means the season, the ground and the sort of path have lined up in a way that past experience says is worth carrying the extra weight for. That's all it is. And the feeling were right, which the book notes with what I can only describe as satisfaction.
I sat forty minutes with that boot, which were the longest sit of the year. Flask conditions excellent. Egg and cress, and a Penguin, which the book itemises separately, quite properly. Five photographs — the most I'd taken of a single shoe at that point. The Chew Valley in July, flat rocks, a weathered boot and forty quiet minutes. There's not a great deal else a man needs, and I say that having had eight more years to think of summat.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.