Last shoe of the year, though I didn't know it at the time — you never do. Left boot, brown, laces in, good condition considering, in the layby on the A635 at Wessenden Head, with snow forecast but not yet come and a bitter wind off the moor.
The notes were done in the car with the flask on the dashboard, which the book records without embarrassment, and quite right. There's no virtue in freezing over a notebook when the car is eight feet away. Flask conditions excellent, which mattered more than usual. Two photographs, quick ones, both come out.
There's a gap in the book before this one — nowt between the Mirfield boot on 20 October and this on 8 December. I couldn't tell you now what the November were, whether it were weather or work or just a quiet moor. The book doesn't say and I'll not dress it. The entry closes the year at twenty, which were the most in a year at that point, and gives the camera the credit, which I'll second now. Twenty shoes, two Saddleworth outings, the locks opened up, and the first hung one. As years in the register go, 2018 earned its keep.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.