Seven weeks between this entry and the last one, and the notebook doesn't explain the gap because the gap explains itself. "First entry in seven weeks, which I'll leave as it stands," the book says, and I'll leave it as it stands now an' all. The register has had quiet spells before — the early winters could go longer — but never one for that reason, and I'd be content if it never does again.
Right plimsoll, black, elastic gusset sort, so no laces to report — the notebook still records "no laces to report," because a field left blank and a field recorded empty are two different things and I've always known which side of that I'm on. It were under the bandstand steps at Beaumont Park. We were still walking from the house, and the book observes that the park were getting more of my attention than it were used to. Beaumont Park has been on the register since, but 2020 is when it earned its place. You work the ground you're given.
Warm morning, park quiet early on. Egg and cress on a bench — the notebook has the sandwich down, and I remember that bench, or I believe I do, which after six years I've learned to state as belief rather than fact. Flask conditions good. Photograph came out. A plimsoll under bandstand steps isn't the register's most dramatic entry, but it were the one that got things moving again, and for that reason I've a soft spot for number 172 that the plimsoll itself did nowt to earn.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.