I'd have walked up to Butterley for the spillway alone. I've said that before and the notebook says it here an' all, because the Butterley spillway is a grand piece of work — all them stepped stones taking the overflow down in order, Victorian men doing a plain job beautifully because they didn't know another way. So the plimsoll made the morning rather than being the whole of it, which takes the pressure off a shoe, I find.
Right plimsoll, white, the lace sort, laces in, on the stone steps at the side of the spillway. Condition fair, rubber perishing at the toe, which rubber does quietly and from within, unlike leather, which at least has the decency to crack where you can see it. Weather warm, light good, and the notebook rates the photographs the best of the year so far — May light on pale stone with a white plimsoll is about as kind as this work gets to a camera.
Flask conditions good. One cup on the steps and one further up, the notebook says, and then home for dinner, which is recorded because getting home for dinner is part of the discipline. A morning that runs into the afternoon is a morning that's lost its shape. Marsden to home is no distance, the plimsoll were photographed and logged by eleven, and Linda had dinner on. Number 215. The register doesn't have favourites, and I'd not allow it to start, but if it did, mornings like that would be the reason — good stone, good light, a co-operative plimsoll, and back in time for dinner. You can't ask more of a Saturday than that and I didn't.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.