First of 2021, and the notebook gives it some detail, because a January shoe earns it. Right trainer, white originally though the notebook says grey by then, halfway up the path on the Almondbury side with the sole facing out. Laces present and frozen stiff — I've written 'frozen stiff' and underlined it, which I didn't often do. Snow were still lying in the shadow of the wall.
Castle Hill I've walked more or less monthly since 1976, so finding the year's first shoe up there felt right, though I'd not have said so at the time and the notebook doesn't say so either. Flask conditions are down as good, and there's a line after it — 'you appreciate a flask more in January than any other month' — which I'd stand by now, five years on. We were keeping close to home at the start of that year, same as everyone were, and Castle Hill is about as close to home as my walking gets.
The photograph came out grainy. They tend to, and I've never bothered to fix it, because it suits the subject. I were home by dinnertime. I remember the cold of that January better than I remember the shoe, if I'm honest, but the notebook remembers the shoe, which is the point of keeping one.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.