Last of the year, and the twenty-second, which made 2019 the busiest year the register had seen. The book records that I noted the total and underlined it, which I don't usually do — the register isn't a competition, not even with itself — but twenty-two shoes were a figure that seemed to want acknowledging, and one underline is about the level of ceremony I'll run to.
Left trainer, black, laces missing, against the wall by the aqueduct at Milnsbridge. Bitter morning, the towpath white until eleven, and the detail the book preserves is the frost sitting on the toe of the trainer where the sun hadn't reached — half the shoe rimed and half not, the line between them as clean as if drawn. That's December on a canal for you. The frost keeps better records than I do, on its day.
Flask conditions excellent, which bitter mornings tend to produce — the flask rises to cold the way it wilts in heat, and December is its season. Two photographs, then home for dinner, which is how the book closes the entry and how I'll close the report. The year had started in January frost at Deer Hill and finished in December frost at Milnsbridge, with Skipton, a lost brogue, a spillway in full voice, and twenty other shoes in between. Writing it up now from the notebook, seven years on, I'd have took 2019 again, and I said as much when I transcribed the year. Some years are just good years. Nowt more to be said about that.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.