She Who Staples

Day 1

In your own space, talk about your Happy Place—the things that give you joy, calms you or keeps you sane.

When in doubt, I go for a walk. My standard walk is two miles down the river and two miles back again; my slightly extended walk crosses the river and comes back on the other bank. Sometimes I do longer walks. Very occasionally I go on holiday and do extremely long walks.

It's great. Fresh air. Space. Movement of the body. Plants, birds, dogs, human beings. Water. Sky.

It goes some way towards getting me out of my head. It gives me time and space to work things through, and I very often come home from a walk knowing exactly what I should do next.

Day 7

In your own space, share something non-fannish about yourself. A passion or a hobby or a talent, something that people might not know about you. We are more than just our fandoms. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I was um-ing and ah-ing over what to write about here. I'd got it down to two options: walking, with an emphasis on letterboxing, or the Paris buses. It occurred to me just now that, while I've written fic about the buses (after all, I would never even have seen Hugo had it not been for the Paris buses), I've never written fic about letterboxing; consequently this makes it the less fannish.

I have, of course, enthused all over this journal about walking (just follow the tag), but I don't think I've really explained about letterboxing, and it's something of a niche activity, even for me - like BookCrossing, but even more so. So.

Letterboxing originated on Dartmoor, when some chap left his visiting card in a container near Cranmere Pool, encouraging people to write to him if they found it. History does not relate how this evolved into letterboxing as she is known today, which is part-treasure hunt, part-physical exercise, part-art.

A letterbox is a container of some sort (something like a sandwich box, or a 35mm film canister), hidden somewhere in the world, containing a rubber stamp and a notebook. The letterboxer first equips themself with their own personal rubber stamp and their own personal notebook, and then sets out to find the letterbox. This may be done by looking for clues on the internet (this is the way I do it), talking to people (helps if there are other people in your area), or by wandering around until you find one (this only really works on Dartmoor).

Letterboxing appeals to the obsessive side of my personality (I love ticking things off lists, and finding all the boxes I set out to find is unreasonably pleasing); it's an interesting way to explore places you wouldn't necessarily go otherwise; but, really, the bit I enjoy most is making and finding new and exciting rubber stamps. I'm getting reasonably good at this, but there are stamps out there that are staggeringly intricate and impressive, and it's really exciting to find a good one.

Should anyone care to find out more about this, I'd recommend Atlas Quest as a site that, while irritatingly set out, contains multitudes. It's very US-centric: the Dartmoor purists seem to look down on anything so twenty-first century as a website, but I've found enough on there to get me started, at least.