Some entries read like work and some read like a day out that happened to have a shoe in it, and this is one of the latter, though I'd note the shoe were properly served either way. Right boot, tan, well worn, laces tied, sat on a flat stone just off the valley path at Wessenden, below the middle reservoir. The notebook describes it as a shoe that looked settled, if that's a word for it, and I remember hesitating over that word at the time because settled edges close to speculation. I let it stand then and I'll let it stand now. Settled describes the sit of the boot, not the story of it. There is no story of it, as far as I'm concerned.
Grand walking weather — high cloud, dry underfoot, the valley doing its full turn. I made a morning of it: stool out, flask excellent, cheese and pickle, and a Penguin I'd forgotten were in the bag, which the book records with what I can only call quiet satisfaction. A forgotten Penguin found at the right moment is worth two remembered ones. The entry calls it one of the better sits of the year, and reading the whole of 2023 back now, with the July moor and the November frost at Blackmoorfoot to compare against, I'd say it holds its place.
Photographs came out. Wessenden is my home water, as much as anywhere is, and a tan boot on a flat stone below the middle reservoir is about the most Wessenden thing Wessenden has ever handed me. Number 246, and gladly.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.