A Very British Letterbox!

Setting out for the moor once again, Mini-Bug was surprised to find that we were in fact going to be letterboxing in some woodland. Whilst the Moor is the largest area of continuous heathland in the country, there are plenty of forests and woods as well.

Bluebells in the woodlands are a wonderful sight, unfortunately the time for a whole carpet of Bluebells on the woodland floor is over, but I was pleased to be able to show Mini-Bug a few which where still in bloom along our route today. Bluebell woods are usually 'old' woodland and typically British and this area of woodland was no exception.

Mini-Bug was interested to see the topographical maps (Ordnance Survey Sheets) which we use for letterboxing. There were symbols for the different types of tree growing in an area of woodland. Coniferous trees, non-coniferous and coppice were three common symbols. She was amazed that you could tell what sort of trees we would see without even setting foot in the area.

Anyway studying our map closely, and combining it with the compass and clue directions we managed to find our first letterbox. Mini Bug sat down on a nearby log and was rather startled and horrified to find herself absolutely surrounded by ants (unfortunately they are so well camouflaged against this log you need very good eyesight to see them in this photo). These were wood ants and Mini Bug had unfortunately sat on a log right next to a thigh high ant hill!

Jumping up very quickly she kicked over the visitors book, which fell open to the last page. That was when she noticed another clue written there. It was a clue to a bonus box - Hurrah! This box was hidden just a few paces away and under a fallen tree branch. The stamp was a double sided one - yellow on one side and deep blue on the other. It was very tricky to line up correctly. We inked up the yellow side first, it is always easier to do the light colour first and also helps to keep the markers clean. Then we did the deep blue side. It was totally impossible to stamp it without getting ink all over ourselves — talk about inky fingers, however once achieved it was a lovely image.

Packing everything away and replacing the boxes (plenty of fallen leaves to use as camouflage) we started to move on to the next position. The clue told us to walk down towards a glade. A glade is an open area in a woodland and looking down the track we could see a lovely sunny area in front. Surely that would be where the glade was. We found the box, tucked into a hole at the side of an ancient tree trunk and here you can see Mini Bug with all her letterboxing paraphernalia ready to stamp in.

As we were driving home through a rather pretty village I suddenly heard a rather squeaky voice shouting ''Stop, stop, stop''. I immediately stamped my foot on the brake and squeeched to a halt only to find Mini-Bug — ever the tourist — had spotted a bright red BRITISH COUNTRY LETTERBOX and wanted her photograph taken next to it! I supposed I was going to have to get used to this if I was going to have American letterboxing visitors staying with me *sigh*, and dutifully got out my camera and took a few snaps :-)