First of 2025, and only a year and a half back now, so this is one where the notebook and my memory are pulling in the same direction, which makes a nice change from some of the early transcribing. Castle Hill, the path up from Lumb Lane, hard frost overnight and one of them mornings where the grass crunches and the whole hill looks like it's been dusted. I've been walking up Castle Hill more or less monthly since 1976 and January is when it earns it.
Right trainer, black, on the grass verge by the path. Laces still in and tied, which you don't often get and which always gets a second line in the notebook. The frost had put a rime on it, and the notebook records — and I remember this plainly — that the sun took the rime off while I sat there. You could watch it going, one side first. I didn't note how long that took, which I slightly regret now, but the register isn't a laboratory.
Flask conditions very good. Cheese and pickle. I sat on the verge rather than fetching the stool from the car, on account of the ground being frozen hard enough to sit on, which is one of the few good things you can say about a hard frost. The photograph came out well enough, for once — the frost helps, I find, everything sharp and the light low. A tidy shoe, a tidy morning, and the year off to a decent start. When the first entry of January is a good one I always take it as a sign the register's in order, though I don't put that in the notebook because it isn't a fact.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.