2009 to 2026 · 321 entries · counted from the register
Since I had the notebooks all typed up I have been able to look at a year at a time, which you cannot do with eleven exercise books in a sideboard. So here is each year from 2009 to 2026 set out the same way, and you can take from it what you like.
A word on how these are set out. Left and right are as the notebook has them. The types are coarse: I have put the brogues, the plimsolls, the Oxford and the two ladies' shoes in with the shoes here, which I would not do in the proper figures, but a separate line for every sort of shoe is no use to anybody reading this on a telephone. The pair at Denby Dale in 2021 are counted in the left and the right an' all, because a left and a right is what they are.
Where a year has no busiest month it is because no month in it took more than one, which happened a fair bit in the early years. Same for the places.
The wellingtons are from their own ledger and are not in the totals. They are here because folk ask what sort of year it were for wellingtons, and it turns out I can tell them.
Four entries between the October and Christmas, one line each, starting with the right boot in the field gateway near Marsden.
| Shoes | 4 |
| Left and right | 2 left and 2 right |
| By type | 2 boots, 1 trainer and 1 shoe |
| Busiest month | November (2) |
| Most visited | Nowhere twice |
| Wellingtons | None |
Ten in a full year with gaps you could drive a bus through, and hardly a photograph worth the name, the phone I had then being no good in low light.
| Shoes | 10 |
| Left and right | 5 left and 5 right |
| By type | 3 boots, 3 trainers, 3 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | Level, none of them more than one |
| Most visited | The canal towpath at Slaithwaite (2) |
| Wellingtons | None |
The year I took the website on from Gary, and the first two wellingtons turned up an' all, which started a question I have still not settled.
| Shoes | 12 |
| Left and right | 6 left and 6 right |
| By type | 4 boots, 3 trainers and 5 shoes |
| Busiest month | Level, none of them more than one |
| Most visited | Nowhere twice |
| Wellingtons | 2, kept separately |
The wettest summer I can remember before or since, and the year the weather starts appearing in the notes, where it has stopped ever since.
| Shoes | 14 |
| Left and right | 6 left and 8 right |
| By type | 5 boots, 4 trainers and 5 shoes |
| Busiest month | May and August (2 each) |
| Most visited | The Wessenden valley, above Marsden, The canal towpath at Slaithwaite (2 each) |
| Wellingtons | 1, kept separately |
Barry from Dewsbury wrote in for the first time and I drove over to Crow Nest Park to confirm it in person, which is how it has been done ever since.
| Shoes | 15 |
| Left and right | 7 left and 8 right |
| By type | 4 boots, 5 trainers, 5 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | March, June and July (2 each) |
| Most visited | Blackmoorfoot Reservoir, The canal towpath at Milnsbridge (2 each) |
| Wellingtons | 1, kept separately |
A settled year, and the one where I pushed out Holmfirth and Hade Edge way for a bit of variety, which paid off more than once.
| Shoes | 16 |
| Left and right | 8 left and 8 right |
| By type | 5 boots, 5 trainers, 5 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | 4 months level at 2 apiece |
| Most visited | Blackmoorfoot Reservoir, Hade Edge (2 each) |
| Wellingtons | 1, kept separately |
The folder opened this year, and the two at Heckmondwike are ordinary shoes, found and confirmed proper, whatever has been said since.
| Shoes | 17 |
| Left and right | 9 left and 8 right |
| By type | 7 boots, 5 trainers, 4 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | 5 months level at 2 apiece |
| Most visited | Heckmondwike (2) |
| Wellingtons | 1, kept separately |
The year of the stool, and the hundredth shoe come in the August at Butterley, which I did not mark at the time and would not now.
| Shoes | 18 |
| Left and right | 8 left and 10 right |
| By type | 8 boots, 4 trainers, 5 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | 6 months level at 2 apiece |
| Most visited | Butterley Reservoir, Marsden, Greenhead Park, Ramsden Reservoir (2 each) |
| Wellingtons | 2, kept separately |
The Emley boot is in this year, the fourteenth of October. It were not the one and I said so at the time.
| Shoes | 18 |
| Left and right | 9 left and 9 right |
| By type | 8 boots, 6 trainers and 4 shoes |
| Busiest month | 6 months level at 2 apiece |
| Most visited | Nowhere twice |
| Wellingtons | 1, kept separately |
I bought the camera from Argos in the February and the notes get longer from there, which is the camera's doing as much as mine.
| Shoes | 20 |
| Left and right | 10 left and 10 right |
| By type | 8 boots, 6 trainers, 5 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | June (3) |
| Most visited | Blackmoorfoot Reservoir, Dovestone and the Chew Valley, The locks above Marsden (2 each) |
| Wellingtons | 1, kept separately |
Twenty-two and the busiest the register had been, Skipton in the June, and the brogue above Meltham in the May that were gone when I went back.
| Shoes | 22 |
| Left and right | 11 left and 11 right |
| By type | 7 boots, 7 trainers, 7 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | March and June (3 each) |
| Most visited | Nowhere twice |
| Wellingtons | 2, kept separately |
We walked from the house for a good stretch of it, and three come off Castle Hill, which were a record for one place at the time.
| Shoes | 16 |
| Left and right | 8 left and 8 right |
| By type | 6 boots, 4 trainers, 5 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | 5 months level at 2 apiece |
| Most visited | Castle Hill, Almondbury (3) |
| Wellingtons | 1, kept separately |
The year of the pair, the twenty-third of October, numbers 198 and 199, and two shoes is two entries.
| Shoes | 21 |
| Left and right | 10 left and 11 right |
| The pair | Numbers 198 and 199, counted as two entries and counted again in the left and the right above |
| By type | 6 boots, 7 trainers, 7 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | October (3) |
| Most visited | Castle Hill, Almondbury, The layby on the A629, Denby Dale (2 each) |
| Wellingtons | 2, kept separately |
Thirty-one, the most of any year. I have no explanation for it and I have not gone looking for one.
| Shoes | 31 |
| Left and right | 16 left and 15 right |
| By type | 10 boots, 10 trainers, 10 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | 4 months level at 4 apiece |
| Most visited | Nowhere twice |
| Wellingtons | 1, kept separately |
Twenty-eight, seven of them between late October and Christmas, and the best morning of the lot were the moor above Meltham in the July when the photographs did not come out.
| Shoes | 28 |
| Left and right | 14 left and 14 right |
| By type | 10 boots, 8 trainers, 9 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | November (4) |
| Most visited | Blackmoorfoot Reservoir, Castle Hill, Almondbury (2 each) |
| Wellingtons | 2, kept separately |
The year the register stopped being just me, with tip-offs coming in steady all autumn, and the Rigby Woods trainer in the August were the find of it.
| Shoes | 26 |
| Left and right | 13 left and 13 right |
| By type | 9 boots, 9 trainers, 6 shoes, 1 sandal and 1 other |
| Busiest month | September and October (4 each) |
| Most visited | Nowhere twice |
| Wellingtons | 2, kept separately |
A quiet year with its feet up, and I went back to the Marsden gateway in the May, sixteen year on, and there were a shoe stood in it.
| Shoes | 20 |
| Left and right | 8 left and 12 right |
| By type | 7 boots, 6 trainers, 6 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | 8 months level at 2 apiece |
| Most visited | Castle Hill, Almondbury (2) |
| Wellingtons | 2, kept separately |
Thirteen up to the August and not an ordinary run of them. There were a vicar. There were a heron. Our Linda found one herself in the Morrisons car park at Brighouse.
| Shoes | 13 |
| Left and right | 5 left, 6 right and 2 with no foot written down |
| By type | 4 boots, 3 trainers, 5 shoes and 1 sandal |
| Busiest month | April (5) |
| Most visited | Nowhere twice |
| Wellingtons | 1, kept separately |
| Shoes | 321, since October 2009 |
| Left and right | 155 left, 164 right, 2 with no foot written down |
| By type | 113 boots, 96 trainers, 97 shoes, 14 sandals and 1 other |
| Wellingtons | 23, in their own ledger |
The right has led the left for as long as I have been counting, and it is leading it still. I have looked at that gap a good while over the years and I have no explanation for it, and I have stopped looking for one. A man can count a thing without having to account for it.
These figures are right as I write, which is September 2026. They will not stay right. That is rather the point of them.
See also: the figures in full, the places, return visits.