Boxing with a Buddy: 10th International Plant a Letterbox Day

Today is the 10th International Plant a Letterbox Day. The 10th one! I can't believe it !!!!

I discovered and joined Atlas Quest ten years ago at the beginning of May 2006, just in time for the first ever Plant a Letterbox Day. Atlas Quest itself was only a couple of years old, still small, quite shiny and new. The Boards were where we all got together and chatted, everyone was so friendly and we had a hoot. It is amazing what you can do 'virtually'. I remember Dixie coming in singing and dancing, passing drinks around, I remember Celtic Quin and Shiloh throwing disorderly people down into the Dungeons and I remember a lot of Cola being spluttered over the keyboards as we Laughed out Loud at the antics. We didn't have many separate boards in those days, but there was so much laughter going on that Ryan had to create the 'Yakking It Up' board. No-one seemed to mind a lone English letterboxer from across the pond joining in on all the American fun. England might be the birth place of Letteboxing, but we had nothing remotely like Atlas Quest. One thing I can say that has not changed in all these ten years is the friendliness and fun on the Atlas Quest boards.

What has all this got to do with Plant a Letterbox Day I hear you ask? Well, I will let you into a secret - the aim of the first plant a letterbox day wasn't so much about planting boxes, as trying to plant and list so many boxes on one day that it would bring Ryan's website grinding to a halt. Sounds a bit mean, but it was all done tongue in cheek and with many virtual laughs - and we never did manage to break it!

Of course after that we just carried on, May 24th each year, trying to plant letterboxes. From then on it was for the right reasons - to encourage people to have a go at planting, not just hunting letterboxes.

Would you believe I nearly forgot this year! Fortunately our American visitor from last weekend returned to Skerries today to do some more letterboxing here. We went to meet her again and give her a lift to the start of a clue which is harder to get to from the railway station. Luckily she started talking about PAL day which made me realise I had the days muddled up, Doh...! After we had a good time chatting and she had found the letterbox. I left her to carry on with the rest of her planned letterboxing day and dashed home to collect Fireball.

At least we had the letterboxes all made up ready for PAL Day. Fireball was planting a small one, and I was planting a good old Lock n' Lock one. We were hoping to plant them in the next village, down by the harbour.

The weather was perfect, and it was quiet down by the sea, hardly anyone around. Perfect for planting letterboxes without attracting attention. That is more than can be said about one of the local houses down by the harbour. A lot of houses in Ireland are painted on the outside and they don't always complement their neighbours chosen colour. I have a saying - "Ireland, the country where they are fearless with the paintbrush" - but this is excessive LOL:-

The housing round the harbour is quite diverse, everything from modern:-

To small traditional thatched cottages:-

We were lucky, both Fireball and I managed to find somewhere to hide our letterboxes. Here is Fireball trying to hide his behind this pole.

Once it was hidden he was very anxious to check that it couldn't be seen, and made sure all the grass he had been sat on was standing up again and not flattened which would be a dead give away.