A filthy morning, this one, and the notebook doesn't dress it up: rain all the way from the house, rain on the towpath, rain on the way back. The Milnsbridge stretch of the canal has been good ground for years — number 57 came off a bench arm along there in 2013 — and I check it in most weathers, because the shoes don't consult the forecast.
Left boot, tan, the work sort, and steel toe by the look of the shape of it, though I didn't lift it to check. You can't interfere, and that includes weighing. It were on its side under the bridge, and here's the detail that made the entry: dry, despite everything coming down outside. That's the advantage of a bridge and I noted it as such. No laces at all. Sole in fair order, uppers scuffed the way a work boot gets scuffed honestly, through work.
I didn't stop long. There's no sitting to be done on a towpath in that sort of rain, stool or no stool, and the boot being under the bridge meant kneeling on wet setts to photograph it, which I did, once. The notebook doesn't say whether the photograph came out and I couldn't tell you now, so we'll leave that one open. Tea were taken in the car afterwards with the heater on, which counts for less than tea taken at the shoe, but it still counts, and I've always logged it honestly as a car flask rather than pretending otherwise. Second of the year and the register ticking over.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.