First proper autumn morning of the year, and Digley put on the full performance: mist sat on the water till nine and then lifted all at once, the way it does there — not a thinning but a lifting, like the reservoir had decided it were time. I've seen it do that a handful of times over the years and it's worth the early start every time. The shoe, in fairness, would have been there at midday an' all, but the mist wouldn't.
Right boot, brown, on the path round the reservoir near the second bench. Laces in and knotted where they'd snapped — somebody had mended them the thrifty way rather than buying new, and the knots had outlasted whatever else happened to the boot. Two winters out, I'd say: leather gone stiff, sole parting at the toe, the whole thing settled into the ground the way they do in their second year.
Sat on the stool with the flask and watched the mist go. Conditions very good — the tea, I mean, though the morning an' all. The notebook has a line I'll carry over exactly as written because I still hold with it: a shoe like this is the bread and butter of the register, and I mean that as a compliment. Anybody can be interested in a brogue on a lock gate. The discipline is in giving a plain brown boot at Digley the same half hour and the same care, because the register doesn't rank its entries and neither do I. Number 304, and autumn under way.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.