Mirfield, which I don't get to as often as the valley ends of the district, but the towpath by Shepley Bridge is a good stretch and it paid off this once. Left trainer, grey, laces gone, on the grass between the path and the water. The notebook calls it the first proper spring morning of the year, mild, barges out, and reading that back I can nearly smell it — that first morning when the canal stops looking like work and starts looking like a day out.
There is one detail in the notebook that I recorded then and will pass on now without addition: the trainer were sodden underneath though it hadn't rained in days. I wrote that down, I noted that I would leave it at that, and I am leaving it at that. Condition fair otherwise.
Flask fine, one cup by the moorings, and then a good steady walk along toward Battyeford, which is recorded, because the walk after the find is part of the find as far as I'm concerned. Four photographs, all came out, which the notebook remarks is a good return for March, and it is — March light off water can fool a camera. I remember being pleased with the day generally. Number 210 of the register, number seven of the year, and it were still only March. The pace of 2022 were starting to make itself known, though I kept me head and logged them one at a time, same as always. That's the only way to do it. The register doesn't care what year it's in.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.