Laybys have their own way of doing things. You don't pull straight in next to the shoe — you park further along and walk back, so you get the approach and you're not stood over it before you've seen how it sits. I've done it that way since the early layby finds and I see no reason to change. This one were on the A6024 above Holme, the boot up against the kerbstone at the far end.
Left boot, brown, size ten, laces gone entirely. A properly weathered boot — one winter out at least, happen two. The leather had gone that grey-brown you only get from a full cycle of frost and sun, and the tongue had set itself at an angle and stayed there. You learn to read the weathering after a while, though I only record what I can see and I don't go further than that.
Cold and clear, first of March, and from that layby you could see right across to Digley. I noted the view in the notebook, which I don't always do, and as it turned out Digley came into the register itself two weeks later with number 312, though of course I didn't know that stood there on the first. The register doesn't look forward. That's rather the point of it.
Took the stool out of the boot of the car but didn't use it in the end — the kerbstone did the job, and sometimes you set the stool up and it feels like more furniture than the occasion wants. Flask conditions very good. Egg and cress, I vary it. Six photographs and all six came out, which I put down to the light, cold clear mornings being the best photographing weather there is. Number 311, and a good honest boot to open March with.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.