The notebook line I like best from this one is 'wind were strong enough to lean on', and that's Scammonden for you. The dam path runs below the M62 bridge and there's nowt between you and the weather in any direction. Anybody who's stood on that dam in February will know exactly the sort of morning I mean.
The shoe were a left boot, black, laces in but loose, and the sole coming away at the toe. It were lying on its side on the dam path. The notebook doesn't say how long I stayed with it and I couldn't tell you now, though given the wind I'd guess not long. I took two photographs and neither came out, which on a day like that is no surprise — I'll have been struggling to hold the camera still, never mind owt else.
That's the whole record. A black boot on its side under the motorway bridge with the wind going over the top of everything. Eleven years on I remember the wind better than I remember the boot, which is why you write the boot down.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.