The Milnsbridge stretch of the towpath has given the register a few over the years, and this one were under the bench, the one before the bridge. Left plimsoll, child's, white gone grey. Elastic sort, so no laces to record, and I wrote "no laces to record" rather than leaving the line blank, because a blank line and a recorded absence are two different things in a register.
It were wet through, and it had been wet a while by the look of it — the canvas gone soft and the sole starting to part at the toe. Mild for February, no wind on the water, the canal flat as anything. I sat with it twenty minutes, which is longer than a plimsoll would normally get, but it were a child's, and I always give a child's a bit longer. I don't make a thing of that. It's just the practice.
Flask conditions fair, milk in as usual. I didn't get the sandwiches out, it not being that sort of stop — some finds are a sit-down and some are a stand, and this were somewhere between. A couple went past on the towpath and the woman looked at the bench and then at me and then decided against asking, which suited us both.
Barry rang that evening about summat else entirely — a matter to do with his guttering, as it happens — and I mentioned the plimsoll, and he agreed it were worth the twenty minutes. Barry's judgement on sitting times has got sounder over the years and I take it seriously. Number 310.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.