Farley attends a Meet.

Farley was very excited to hear that we were going to stay with some friends of mine for the weekend of THE MEET. I was all packed. My walking rucksack contained clues, compass, stamping in the wild gear and spare visitors books/plastic bags for repairs. My Meet rucksack had good pens, inks, personal travellers, spare index cards and swap boxes. My boots, walking socks, fleece, waterproof and walking stick were all gathered together. Farley just sat in amazement watching me put it all into the car. Farley got in too, and just as I was about to set off I suddenly remembered - I was going to need a toothbrush, toothpaste and pyjama's. Oh heck, I hadn't thought about that! I had to unlock the house, rush in and quickly toss some overnight gear into a carrier bag.

Finally we set off for the drive over to the other side of Yorkshire. When we arrived the first to greet us was Lily the Labrador. Lily took Farley indoors and they sat together whilst we had a cup of tea and cake. Farley was so pleased to meet another dog. Lily immediately became Farley's hero when he spotted Lily's Dartmoor 100 dog tag on her collar. Lily is a registered Dartmoor letterboxing dog, — number 510! They sat and talked for ages about letterboxing and Lily was astounded to hear that Farley was a Boxing Buddy all the way from West Virginia, USA. We finally took them for a walk onto the moor to practice British letterbox hunting. Farley was so relieved to discover that they weren't inside those big red British letterboxes standing on the side of pavements. They were much too visible and sure to be muggled. Once all the boxes had been found, stamped into and hidden again properly Farley asked for a photograph to be taken with me, which we did. So those of you who wish to know what I look like — here you are :-D

The next morning was THE MEET. We all got up early as we had to get there in time to plant the letterboxes we had prepared especially for the day. We had decided that in order to save time later, Lily and Farley would go and plant their boxes, then swop clues to go and find them before the gathering at lunch time. That would leave the field clear for everyone else to find them in the afternoon. Farley and I set off first because Lily wanted time to tidy up her basket before leaving.

When we arrived on the Moors we set off to plant our box. In the time we had allowed ourselves we couldn't find a spot we really liked (it is always the way when you think it will be easy), but we managed to find a hiding place that would do for the Meet, we could change the clues later. Farley had brought a Cuckoo with her to plant in my box too. You can see the cuckoo through the lid, and you can see Farley planting the box. (I mention this because of what happened later). We got back to the car and had hardly started to write the clues out properly when Lily arrived saying she had finished planting hers. Gosh, that was quick, she was obviously very well prepared and all that letterboxing experience was paying off. We swopped clues and set off to find Lily's boxes.

As we walked along Farley loved the signs on the gates along the footpath and wanted his photograph taken to prove where he had been. He worked out one of the clues and found it without too much trouble. There was no-one around so he retrieved it and took it to stamp up on the trunk of a fallen tree that made a very handy table. He was really able to spread himself out.

Packing everything up we moved on to the next box. Once again no-one was around and Farley retrieved it without trouble. When he opened the box up Farley couldn't believe his eyes — there was the Little Lost Lamb Cuckoo — you can see it tucked into the corner of the letterbox. What?...... Our first thought was that we had not planted it in our own box, but had somehow picked it up on our clothes or something and now dropped it in the box. No, no, no.... we had definitely left it planted in our letterbox and we had the photo on the camera to prove it. Then we realised that Lily must have found our box, and come back to plant it here somehow, but how had she got past us? We hadn't seen anyone! Perhaps Lily had come down the footpath from the opposite direction, but that was an awfully long way. How had Lily managed to do everything so quickly? We knew she was a Dartmoor Letterboxing Dog, but this was amazing!

Anyway we had to get back, it was nearly lunch time and we wanted to meet everyone. The gathering place was at a pub nearby. It was lucky an indoor venue had been chosen, because whilst the weather was great for letterboxing, it would have been a bit grey and cold to sit outdoors and chat. We were the first to arrive. Marjorie, the AtlasQuest spring chick, came next and she stood on the table in case anyone was unsure about who we were. Ukusa, the organizer of the meet, was the next and what a marvellous job she had done. Amongst other things she had lists for us to check our finds against and a wonderful AQ gathering stamp. Gradually everyone trickled in from their morning's letterboxing. The table became covered in stamps, inks, and logbooks. It was great fun learning from Ukusa the American way with things such as exchanges, we taught her the British way with things such as Parasites. It was a real mixture of American/English letterboxing, totally different from any other Meet and it was great to feel we were all AtlasQuest folk, and experience a little of the things we read about on the AQ message boards. We hardly had time to stop and eat there was such a stamping frenzy!

At last we got a moment to ask Lily how the cuckoo had managed to move. Apparently they had been so quick that Lily had indeed found it in our box, and had come back to put it in Lily's box before we found it. She had been so quick that she had sneaked past us as we were stamping into the first box we found, then away again. We were so busy inking up that we hadn't seen her at all. We were never going to live this down, what slow letterboxers we were!

One letterboxer had come all the way from Scotland, just for the Meet and everyone was thrilled with his Personal Traveller, Cow Pie — hmmm......Yum. We also met some letterboxers who have been letterboxing on the moor almost since it began here 17 years ago. It was great to talk to them because I had only met them once before, at last years 101 Meet, all because of the internet. It has certainly enabled communication.

Finally we all swapped the clues to the letterboxes that we had planted that morning and also swapped some boxes to plant when we got home. Of course, once the clues were swapped everyone wanted to head out to find them so that was the end to the Meet :-)

Powered by ScribeFire.