An ordinary town shoe in an out-of-the-way spot, which is a combination I've come to know well over the years but were still fairly new to me in 2015. Left shoe, black, lace-up, five eyelets, laces missing. The sort of shoe a man wears to an office or a funeral, on the verge near the top of Scapegoat Hill Road, above Golcar, where there's no office and no funeral for a fair distance. The notebook says 'odd spot for it, though I don't go into that', and I still don't. Noting that a spot is odd is observation. Going into it is speculation, and speculation isn't what I do.
The weather did what late August up Scapegoat Hill often does: blustery to start, then rain coming sideways by nine. Flask conditions fair. No photograph — and given the rain I'd say that were a decision rather than a failure, though the notebook doesn't distinguish and after eleven years neither can I.
Five eyelets, no laces. I've recorded eyelet counts ever since where the shoe allows it. A shoe with the laces gone still tells you what it were built to hold, and that's worth having down.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.