Facing another locked-down birthday, my friend Erin Kyan decided to hold a postal zine fair for his party!
Erin sent out two templates for aspiring zinesters to use, then he and his partner printed and folded many, many, many zines to send out to friends. My parcel is waiting in Australia - I'm looking forward to seeing all the hard copy zines when we get back there in a couple of months. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the digital versions. Erin also had a live stream to go through all the zines, but it was at 3am UK time, so I had to watch it the following day.
 Morning tea on the first day, eating Gemma's home made brownies. Maybe you can just make out a face, a shirt, and some trees, grass and a fence! |  Intro to my zine. |
I made a zine for the party! I'd just been on a wonderful three-day walk with my friend Gemma over the South Downs, meandering slowly from Brighton to Eastbourne. We aimed to take it easy and really soak up the atmosphere, only walking about 12km/7.5mi per day. Our main preparation seemed to be bringing way more food than we needed. It was delicious, and we weren't carrying camping gear, so I'm not complaining!
 Lunchtime view over the Ouse valley towards the Caburn (aka Mount Caburn). We'd been up the Caburn with Gemma a few months before, and it was fun to remember that trip. I love these views from the South Downs. |  View from the Church of St Peter in Southease, where we filled our bottles from the free water tap provided for South Downs Way walkers, cyclists and runners. The line down the middle is a rope swing. |
One thing I'd wanted to do on the walk was to make some art along the way, so I took my sketchbook and a pen and did some contour drawings. In the technique I like to use, you look at the subject of your drawing but not at the paper while you use one continuous line to draw what is in front of you. It's a fun way to make you slow down and really look at whatever is in front of you, and the results are often kind of surprising.
 A robin on the path to The Farmhouse at Southease YHA. We stayed in a pod there, rather than having to lug all our camping gear along. It's a convenient stopping place - and nice for lunch if you're there during the day. |  Gemma napping on the downs, probably somewhere near Firle Beacon. The wildflowers were amazing this year! I like how the flowers look like they're growing over her rather than behind - like something from a children's book. |
My sketchbook is square and the zine format is oblong, so these are crops of photos of the images. Usually I spend about 5-10minutes on each drawing, so it's not a huge time commitment when walking or travelling in general. It often takes me a couple of drawings to get into the swing of things - and some scenes are trickier than others.
 Refreshments at Jevington on a very windy day. This ended up being the only drawing I did on the third day, because the weather wasn't quite as nice and I was a bit too chilly to stop. Also, a bit tired! |  A bunch of zines that I'm looking forward to reading in person. There's something about holding a physical copy that you don't quite get with a PDF. |
Anyway, the walk was fun and making the little zine was fun, and Erin's idea for a postal zine fair for his birthday was super fun! I just thought I'd share something I've been up to in addition to packing up our lives and getting ready to move to the other side of the world!
One of the things I enjoyed on this trip was crossing over with so many of our other outings and adventures, like walking the Sussex Ouse Valley Way, sleeping on the South Downs after a thunderstorm and, although not the same bit of the South Downs, carrying on the idea of enjoying slow walks. It was a fitting and slightly bittersweet goodbye to an area I have learnt and loved and feel really connected to.
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