The best morning of the autumn, and the notebook knew it at the time — the entry runs longer than its neighbours and the writing has a Sunday steadiness to it, though it were a Saturday. Left boot, brown, on the dam wall path at Ramsden Reservoir. Laces in, one snapped short. Fair condition. It came in as a tip from a lady on the walking forum who signs herself Meg58, and I confirmed it in person as the rule requires. Meg58 has never given her actual name and I've never asked, that being forum manners, but she gave a location accurate to twenty yards, which in my experience puts her in the top rank of correspondents.
Clear, still morning, and the water were like glass — the notebook uses them exact words and I'll not improve on them, plain being the house style. I had the place to meself bar a heron stood at the far end, which did what herons do, which is nowt, magnificently. I'd brought the stool, having had a feeling about it, and the feeling were right. Sat a good while with the boot and the water and the heron, all three of us facing roughly the same direction.
Flask conditions excellent — the best of the autumn to that point, and as it turned out, the best of the autumn full stop, because I've checked ahead in the notebook and nowt after it scores higher. A crackin' morning by any measure, the notebook says, and two years on I've no notes to add. Some entries you transcribe and some you're glad to have been there for, and this were both.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.