A work boot, this one. Right, tan, laces gone, and the steel toe showing through the leather — a boot that had earned its retirement, wherever it took it. Working three days a week at a builders' merchant I see a lot of boots in that state still on men's feet, so I know the type well. It were in the layby on the A640 near Nont Sarah's, and laybys have always been good ground for me. Shoes turn up in laybys at a rate nowhere else matches, and I record that as a fact and leave the why of it to them as speculate, which isn't me.
The notebook calls it a crackin' morning, with the wind 'for once behaving itself', which anybody who knows the A640 over Scammonden will understand — that road gets weather other roads are spared. Flask conditions very good, the first 'very good' in the register since flask notes began that March.
Three photographs taken and one came out. One in three were a decent return for 2015. I remember this boot, or I believe I do — the steel toe catching the light is in my head, though whether that's memory or just the notebook's doing, I honestly couldn't say. That's the trouble with a good notebook. It remembers so well you can't tell what's yours.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.