First shoe of 2020, and reading the notebook back now I'm glad neither of us knew what were coming. Left boot, black, well worn, the sole parting at the heel and the top two eyelets without lace. It were on the verge of Wessenden Head Road, right where the moor comes down to meet the tarmac, which is a spot I've always rated. That stretch of verge turns things up more than most, and why it should is not for me to say, because that's not the point of what I do. It repays attention, is all.
The book records grey with a hard wind off the tops, and I can vouch for the wind from memory because Wessenden Head in January only has the one setting. Flask conditions good, but I drank it stood up — the ground were sodden and there's no sense putting a stool down in that. Standing tea is lesser tea, but it's still tea.
One photograph, and the notebook says it came out reasonable, which for a black boot against dark moor in flat January light is doing well. The boot itself had done a winter out there at least, by the state of the sole, though the book doesn't commit to a figure and neither will I. A steady start, the notebook calls it, and it were. You want your first of the year steady. The dramatic ones can wait for spring.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.