The notebook gives this one a good half page, and reading it back I can see why. Right trainer, blue with a white sole, laces in and knotted, sat upright on the grass verge on the west side of Blackmoorfoot. Hardly worn — the notebook says 'hardly worn' twice, once in the description and once further down, as if I'd looked again and still couldn't get past it.
Bright morning, cold wind coming off the reservoir. I'd brought the stool — 'glad of the stool' is written there — so I must have had a feeling about it before I set off, which is generally when the stool comes.
A trainer in that condition sat upright on a verge does set you wondering, and the notebook has a line I'll copy out as written: 'You do wonder, but wondering's not the job.' That's about as close as the 2021 notebook gets to a statement of principle, and it'll do. Noted, photographed, left where it stood. I've been past Blackmoorfoot plenty of times since and I couldn't tell you now whether it were still there on any of them, because I didn't note it, and what isn't noted is gone. That's not a rule I made up to be difficult. It's just what a register is.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.