There's no putting this one off, so: the layby. A629, this side of Denby Dale, the 23rd of October 2021. Two shoes, brown leather, size ten, laces tied, set neatly on the verge side by side, toes to the road. A pair. In twelve years of doing this I had never found two together, and in the five years since I haven't again.
This entry is the right shoe. The left is number 199.
I'll set down how the numbering were decided, because it's the only time the method has ever needed deciding rather than just doing. I sat with them a good while, and the question I sat with weren't how they came to be there, because that's never the question. The question were whether a pair is one entry or two. And the answer, once I'd stopped being startled and started thinking, were plain enough: the register documents lone shoes, one shoe per entry, one number per shoe. Two shoes is two entries. I saw no reason to make an exception and I've seen no reason since.
Weather were still, with a bit of drizzle. I photographed the pair together first, then each on its own, right then left — in number order before the numbers existed, which pleases me now, though I doubt I noticed at the time. I rang Barry that evening. He were quiet for a bit and then said he'd want to see it, and he did, the Sunday after — but that's recorded under 199, where it fell. Between the two entries the whole business is down, and I'd direct anybody who asks about 'the pair' to read both numbers and then, gently, to move on.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.