Not much happened at Hade Edge, and the notebook says so in as many words, which I've come to regard as one of the more valuable entries in the book. Left plimsoll, navy, slip-on sort, flattened, on the verge near the football ground above Holmfirth. Grey morning, low cloud sat on the tops.
One photograph, grainy, but the shape reads. Flask conditions fair. The note ends 'a quiet shoe in a quiet spot', and just above it I'd written that nowt-to-report is worth writing down as much as owt else. That's the discipline. If you only write on the big days the register lies by omission. The football ground were empty, it being a Sunday morning in July, and the plimsoll had the verge to itself.
I couldn't tell you owt about this one from memory. It has gone completely, the way a grey morning at Hade Edge will. But the book holds it, which is the entire reason the book exists. Hade Edge come good four years later, mind — the child's boot in September 2022 is one I still come back to in my mind occasionally. Number 138 laid no groundwork for that. They just happen to share a hilltop.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.