A proper morning of it, this one. I set off at half seven, up from Marsden to Wessenden the usual way, and the weather did what March does up there: sun, then hail, then sun again, all inside the hour. The notebook records it exactly like that, three words with commas, and I can add from memory that the hail came sideways and had gone before I'd got me hood up, which is the correct way to deal with Wessenden hail — let it pass.
The boot were on the reservoir path below the first dam. Right boot, brown, laces in and tied, and it had a winter on it at least, the leather gone stiff the way leather goes when it's stood outside through frost and thaw enough times. I'd brought the stool because I had a feeling about it, and the notebook confirms both the feeling and the stool, and I sat with the boot twenty minutes, which felt right for it. Some shoes you photograph and move on. Some you sit with. I can't tell you the rule, but there is one, and after all these years I trust it.
Flask conditions very good. Cheese and pickle. Photographs grainy, but they suit the subject — I've said that for years and I said it in the notebook that day an' all, so it's official. Wessenden is my territory as much as anywhere is, and a brown boot on the dam path in changeable March weather is about as central to this work as an entry gets. Number 209 is not a famous one. It's just the job done right.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.