Wessenden again, and I make no apology for it. The valley path between the first and second reservoirs is some of the best shoe ground in the district and has been since the early notebooks, and if the register leans on it a bit heavy over the years, that's because it keeps producing.
Left boot, brown, the heavy sort, laces in and knotted, lying in the heather a few yards off the path. Weathered — a winter out at least, by the state of the leather, and I'd trust the 2019 version of me on that judgement because by then I'd seen enough wintered boots to know one. A boot that's sat through a Wessenden winter has a look to it. This had the look.
Cold wind coming down the valley but bright with it, which is Wessenden's usual offer in April and you take it. The book records half an hour on the stool, flask conditions excellent, cheese and pickle. Five photographs and three came out, which the entry notes is about right for Wessenden light, and I stand by that as a general finding — summat about the valley eats photographs. The three that survived are grainy and dark and look exactly like the morning did, so I count them a success. A good, solid, unremarkable entry, this one, and the register is mostly built out of those. The remarkable ones get the attention. The likes of 151 are the actual work.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.