Brown suede on moorland is a mismatch, and the notebook says as much: an odd shoe for the setting, the sort you'd wear with trousers, and there it were on the embankment path at Deer Hill above Meltham with its laces present and tied. The entry then has a line I still use, so I may as well credit that year's notebook with it — the hard-covered one from the January sales — I record what's there, not what ought to be. If I only logged shoes that made sense for their surroundings the register would be half the length and half the use.
First of April, bright morning, cold in the shade of the embankment, which at Deer Hill is a proper cold because the sun doesn't get behind that bank until the afternoon. I sat half an hour with the flask, which performed well, and had the cheese and pickle. Half an hour is a decent sit for a single shoe and I'll have judged it worth the time, though whether it were the shoe or the reservoir keeping me there the book doesn't say and I can't now either. Deer Hill is a good pour of water and quiet with it.
Two photographs, one came out. That's a fifty per cent return, which by the standards of my early years is riches — I lost whole shoes to the camera in 2010. Suede photographs soft, I've found, even when it comes out, so the surviving frame will have been more of an impression than a record. The notebook holds the facts regardless. Right shoe, brown suede, laces tied, number 240. What it were doing up there is a question for somebody in a different line of work.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.