A fortnight after the layby, and the notebook reads like a man glad to be back on a towpath. Left trainer, white gone yellow at the sole, laces in, below the lock beam at Tunnel End, Marsden. Cold and bright, and the canal were steaming a bit first thing, which it does up there on the right sort of November morning.
The entry says that after the month before, a plain trainer on a towpath felt like the register settling back into itself, and that'll do as a summary five years on. The layby were the layby; this were the work. Round numbers don't mean owt in themselves — a shoe doesn't know it's the two hundredth — but I'll admit the notebook has '200' written a touch larger than the entries either side, so some part of me marked it.
Flask conditions good. Photographed twice and both came out, which by Tunnel End standards, where the light comes down the cutting all contrary, is a good morning's photography. Home for dinner. The first boot of all were found near Marsden in 2009, and here were number 200 twelve years on, a mile or so down the same valley. I didn't note that at the time. I'm noting it now.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.