Last one of the year, as it turned out, though you never know that at the time — the notebook makes that exact point and it's a point worth keeping. Every December entry might be the last of its year and might not, and there were a fortnight of walking after this that turned up nowt, so number 308 got the honour by default, which is the only way the honour is ever awarded.
Right boot, child's, dark green, the Velcro sort, so no laces to report. In the leaves at the bottom of Royd Edge Clough at Meltham, and December leaves are a serious hiding place — I'd say I only saw it because the green were the wrong green for the floor it were on. Children's shoes get the longer sit, as is my practice, and this one got it: cold, low sun coming through the trees at that flat winter angle that lights the clough up sideways for about an hour and then thinks better of it.
I did summat I don't usually do, which the notebook owns up to: I got the ledger up to date there and then, on the stool, with the last of the tea, rather than back at home at the table. Cold fingers make for poor handwriting and the entry shows it, but there were a rightness to closing the year's business in the field, and I'd caught the feeling it were the year's business closing, even if I couldn't have said so as a fact.
Twenty for the year. Steady. No great distances bar Baitings, the classics doing what the classics do, and the register carried on, which is the whole point of a register. That's 2025 transcribed, and the notebook goes back in the drawer with the spare pen on top of it.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.