Right trainer, grey, on the coping stones by the lock at Milnsbridge. Laces gone, and the tongue missing an' all, which is less common than you'd think — laces go all the time but a tongue takes some losing. I recorded it plainly and I'll leave it plain now.
Showers on and off that day. Flask conditions fair, and the notebook says I didn't bring the stool — no need on a towpath, is the reasoning given, and it still holds. A towpath has lock beams, coping stones and bollards. A man who carries a stool along a canal is carrying weight for nowt.
The photograph came out grainy. Most of mine did in that era, and I've said before that I've never bothered to fix it. Grey trainer, grey stone, grey sky — the graininess didn't have much to spoil. Milnsbridge has been a steady stretch for the register over the years, the towpath there being well used and shoes turning up on it at a fair rate. This were one of the plainer ones, honestly recorded, three weeks after the stool arrived and the first entry to manage without it.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.