A small shoe in a narrow place. The notebook puts it that way and there's no bettering it. Left plimsoll, black, a child's, elastic gusset — so no laces to record, and it's recorded that there were none to record. It were in the snicket off Scar Lane at Golcar, halfway down where the wall bulges, and if you know that snicket you'll know the bulge, and if you don't then no description of mine will place it for you. Golcar is all snickets and steps and I'm fond of it for that, though it's never been a heavy producer.
Warm, still morning. The entry records that I had to stand awkward to photograph it square — a snicket doesn't give you room to step back, so you're working at angles a wider path would spare you — and that a woman with a pushchair waited while I finished, very patient about it. I remember her being patient. I couldn't tell you owt else about her, and the book doesn't either, but patience in a snicket is worth what I said at the time, which will have been thank you.
The photograph came out well, awkward stance and all. I didn't linger after — a child's shoe, a public thoroughfare, and a morning warming up all argue for briskness, and briskness is what the entry shows. In the book by dinnertime as number 245. The flask doesn't get a mention, which means it stayed in the bag, which in June is no hardship.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.