Goodbye Mini-Bug

This account of Mini-Bug's last adventure is rather late as I did not have time to post it before my weeks holiday in Ireland. I expect Mini-Bug is already home in America, with her owner Trouble Bug, but never the less here is the story of her last excursion.

Mini-Bug had hoped her last letterboxing expedition, before returning home to America, would be to the seaside. She had heard the sea was nearby but alas her hopes were to be dashed. The seaside is indeed only 20 minutes away but there are, as yet, no letterboxes hidden there. To console her I offered to take her to the next best place, the Humber Estuary, on which this city is built.

The nearest fishing village on the estuary used to have a big shrimping industry working out of it, and it was here beside the old lighthouse and fishermens cottages that we parked. The day was rather dull but the lighthouse and cottages still stood out with their whitewashed walls. It is a rather stumpy little lighthouse, but I am sure many sailors have been glad of the warning light that came from it. Both the lighthouse and the cottages are now converted into private residences and a light no longer shines out from the lamproom.

Walking beside the estuary Mini-Bug came across some strange rusted iron hoops that were protruding from the concrete breakwater. These were all that remained of the piers where the fishing boats had tied up in days gone by. It is a very apt place to have a letterbox about trawlermen. Hull was once the greatest Deep-Sea Trawling port in the world and the crews who sailed from here were given a nickname of 'Yorkies' by the fishermen on the other trawlers. Now all that has gone and the last time I heard we were down to only two trawlers sailing out of the Port of Hull.

Mini-Bug was busy reading the clue, and giving me directions - as if I didn't know where to go (it was one of my boxes I wanted to do maintenance on)! We followed the path along the flood barriers and she got so engrossed in stepping out the paces that she failed to notice the barbed wire fence until *Wham* she was caught on a barb! I managed to extract her and as the letterbox was at the base of the post she was soon far too busy stamping up to worry anymore about it. As we returned to the car two boats sailed by down the estuary, causing quite a wash in their wake.

The time had now come to say goodbye to Mini-Bug. She was looking forward to her journey back home as this time she would have a companion - Yorkshire Tyke. Yorkshire Tyke was venturing out on her first travels to America and Mini-Bug was going to introduce Yorkshire Tyke to Trouble Bug and help her to feel at home before setting out on further travels herself.

Goodbye Mini-Bug, I hope you had a good journey home and thank you for being such a fun Boxing Buddy to take with me on my letterboxing trips this month.