The spillway at Butterley is a fine bit of stonework in its own right — the notebook says so and I've said so to anybody who'll listen — so a shoe presenting on the steps at that end of the reservoir got a better morning out of me than the shoe alone strictly earned. Right trainer, grey, the mesh sort, laces missing. Mesh weathers badly and greys further, so a grey mesh trainer left out is a shoe heading towards invisibility, and I were glad to get it in the book while it were still declaring itself.
Warm — the first proper warm day of the year by my reckoning, and the notebook's reckoning, which are the same reckoning. That brought the walkers out, and the entry records that two of them stopped to ask what I were photographing. I explained. They moved on. That exchange, more or less word for word, has happened to me some hundreds of times since 2009 and it near always ends with the moving on, which suits all parties.
Flask conditions good, and I had twenty minutes on the stool by the spillway. I couldn't tell you now what were in the sandwiches — the book doesn't say, which likely means it were nowt worth recording, so probably cheese and pickle on an ordinary day for it. The photographs came out. Butterley in May with the water high and the stone bright is worth the trip with no shoe in it at all, and there were a shoe in it. Number 243. A good morning by any measure I keep.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.