By June 2020 the stretch of canal within walking distance of our house had been gone over more thoroughly than any towpath in the history of towpaths. The notebook says as much, and so when it finally produced a shoe, the book allows itself a rare bit of feeling: "satisfying in a quiet way." That's about as demonstrative as Notebook Five gets, and I remember agreeing with it.
Left trainer, grey, size eight or thereabouts, lace in but undone. It were up against the wall by the bridge hole at Longroyd Bridge, which is a shadowed sort of spot where a grey trainer can sit unnoticed by everyone who isn't specifically looking for it. I was specifically looking for it. That's the job.
Overcast and close, the book says, and June 2020 had a lot of mornings like that — the sort where the weather can't commit and you sweat in a light jacket either way. Flask conditions fair, tea slightly stewed, which the notebook records without complaint but also without letting it pass, which is the correct posture on stewed tea. Photograph grainy but usable. The bridge hole doesn't give the camera much light to work with, and the camera repaid it in grain, as is its custom. Number 173 is nobody's favourite entry, mine included, but the register isn't a collection of favourites. It's a record, and the record says a grey trainer were at Longroyd Bridge on the sixth of June, and it were.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.