Upright ones are always worth a longer look, and this were as upright as they come: a left brogue, dark brown, laces tied in a bow, sitting square on the flat top of the churchyard wall at St Lucius', Farnley Tyas, like it were waiting for a bus. I record the position and nowt else. Positions are facts. Explanations are not my department.
Good condition, hardly worn — the sole barely marked, the bow tied by somebody who ties a proper bow. With the smart ones I have a practice: I wait a while before entering them, in case somebody comes back. A weathered boot on a moor is nobody's live property, but a polished brogue on a wall could be a man's actual shoe mislaid within the hour, and the register doesn't want them. So I waited. Mild, still morning, the sort September does best. The bells went at ten. Nobody came, and after a decent interval it went in the ledger, where it belongs.
Egg and cress, taken sat under the yew — and I'll record what the notebook records, which is that partway through the sandwich I realised where I were sat and moved. Not out of any superstition, because I don't hold with any, but a churchyard has its arrangements and a man eating his dinner should be on the visitor's side of them. I finished the sandwich on the wall end, a respectful distance from the brogue. A still, mild, well-mannered entry all round, and Farnley Tyas is a village I'd recommend to anybody, shoe or no shoe.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.