Castle Hill again, the second of the year off that hill after January's trainer, and I make no apology for it. I've been walking up there more or less monthly since 1976, and if a place you visit monthly turns up two shoes in a year, that's not favouritism, that's coverage. The hill still produces, which I take as a point in its favour, and at my count it's now given the register a fair handful over the years without ever once being dull about it.
Right trainer, child's, white, Velcro strap, so no laces to report. On the trig side, not far from the tower. Children's shoes get the longer sit, as is my practice, and this one got it in a blustery wind that had most visitors doing the quick loop and back to their cars. Condition decent — not long out, the white still white, which on Castle Hill it doesn't stay for long.
A kestrel were working the slope below the wall the whole time I sat there, hanging and dropping and coming back up with nowt, as far as I could see. That went in the notebook because it were part of the morning and the morning is part of the record. Flask conditions good despite the wind, on account of me sitting in the lee of the wall, which is a trick the hill teaches you inside your first fifty visits. The photograph came out. Blustery days are kinder to cameras than they feel — it's drizzle that does the damage. Down by dinnertime with the ledger one further on and the kestrel still at it.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.