A child's trainer. Right, blue with a white stripe, small, laces done up. It were on the conduit path below Deer Hill, sat square on a flat stone — not dropped, sat, and the notebook records exactly that: "sat square." How it come to be there is not for me to say, and the book says so too, in them words near enough. I've held that line since 2009 and the children's ones are where the line does its work.
It were a bright morning, cold, with good visibility right across to Meltham, the sort of early March day that lets you believe spring is a real thing that happens to real people. I brought the stool and used it. The book confirms both, and I sat a while with that trainer, longer than the notes strictly needed. Flask conditions very good.
Two photographs taken, one came out. The one that came out shows the stone, the stripe, and the laces done up, which is everything the register requires. Reading it back in 2026, this is one of the entries where the handwriting is smaller and more careful than the ones either side of it, and I couldn't tell you now whether I noticed that at the time. It's number 170. It were logged the same as any other, because logging it the same as any other is the respect.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.