Autumn proper by then, and this one were in Honley Old Wood, on the main path down toward Mag Brook — beech leaves coming down steady, the notebook says, and that wood in leaf-fall is a fine place to be stood whatever you're stood there for.
Right boot, black, ankle sort, laces in. Condition fair, leather sound but the sole letting go at the heel. Before photographing I had to clear a few leaves off the boot, and the notebook is careful to log the distinction I made at the time: that's tidying the record, not interfering. I'll defend that line today. Interfering is moving a shoe, turning a shoe, taking a shoe home. Removing three beech leaves so the subject can be seen is no different to waiting for a cloud to pass, and if anybody wants to take it up with me, the leaves were replaced by the wood itself within the half hour, such is October.
Grey morning, still. I put the stool up and had the flask among the trees, conditions good, and the notebook calls the whole thing a quiet, steady sort of find, which is a category I'd formalise if the register had categories. Not every entry wants to be number 229 or the Layby Pair. Most of the register — the honest bulk of it — is quiet, steady finds on grey mornings, recorded properly by a man with a flask, and if the register has a backbone that's what it's made of. Number 231 sits in the middle of the biggest year I've ever had, asking for no attention at all. It gets this page anyway. Fair's fair.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.