Beaumont Park on a bright cold Saturday, leaves down, the park busy with dogs — and on the steps below the bandstand, a right shoe, brown suede, the desert boot sort. Laces in, tied. And barely worn. The notebook says you'd wear it out of the shop, and looking at the photographs now I'd go further: you'd have to look hard to tell it from new. The suede hadn't even taken the damp. It can't have been out more than a day, happen not more than a morning.
A woman stopped while I were photographing it and asked if it were mine. I said no, and left it at that, there not being a short answer to the longer question. I've thought about that exchange since, transcribing it, because it's the whole difficulty of the work in one go: the true answer is 'no, but I'm the person responsible for it being recorded', and there's no way of saying that on the steps of a bandstand to a stranger with a spaniel that doesn't take longer than either of you has. So: no. She seemed satisfied. The spaniel weren't bothered either way.
Photographs came out well — bright cold light being the best this district offers a photographer, and suede being a forgiving subject. Left as found, upright on its step. Beaumont Park would go on to give the register another entry in 2026, on a bench not far from that bandstand, but that's another year's business and it can wait for its own page. In October 2024 the park's contribution were this boot, and it were a good one.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.