First of the year, and the notebook has it under the bridge by Morley Lane. Right trainer, white gone grey, laces in and frozen stiff. Snow were lying on the towpath, which I did note, because by 2013 I were noting weather as a matter of course.
I remember the frozen laces. You don't forget a shoe that's set solid. What I couldn't tell you is how long I stood with it, because I weren't timing visits in them days, and the photograph didn't come out, which were the usual state of affairs that winter. I will have had the flask, it being January on a canal, but the notebook says nowt about it. Flask conditions didn't go in the record till 2015. The shoe stands as written: right trainer, white, Morley Lane bridge, frozen. That's the record and it's enough.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.