I've been walking up Castle Hill more or less monthly since 1976, which by March 2019 were forty-three years of visits, and in all that time it had given me two shoes. This were the third. That's a strike rate that would put most people off a hill, but I don't go up Castle Hill for the shoes. The shoes, when they come, are extra.
Left boot, tan, well worn, one lace snapped short. It were in the grass below the tower on the Almondbury side, and the book notes it were worth noting, which is the notebook talking to itself a bit but I know what I meant. A shoe on ground you've walked for forty-odd years lands different to a shoe on ground you've driven to. You feel you should have seen it coming, though of course that's not how any of it works.
Grey day, no view to speak of, and Castle Hill without a view is just a hill with a tower on it, which suits me fine as it keeps the crowds down. I brought the stool and used it — the book confirms both, which matters, because bringing it and using it are two separate decisions. Flask conditions good. Three photographs, grainy, as they are. The grain suits Castle Hill in the grey. I'd not want it any sharper.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.