Astroblog: A Christmas Beetle

Sunday, January 07, 2007

A Christmas Beetle

Did you have a White Christmas? We did, Christmas day started off with a fairly heavy hail fall, so the ground was covered in white hard spheres, a sort of romantic (if cold) styrofoam. I didn't get a picture as I was too busy showing the boys to locate the camera, as well as being caught up with the general excitement of unwrapping Christmas presents.

The hot an sunny weather we had been having disappeared over the Christmas-New Year period. On one hand, this made the traditional roast dinner with hot Christmas pudding bearable, on the other it kind of cramped our traditional swimming activities. It also cramped my astronomy related activities as well (I bought my portable telescope, so of course it was cloudy nearly the whole time). However, we did visit Scienceworks, so I'll write about that later.

Towards the end of the Christmas period we stayed with friends of ours for an overnight visit. Their youngest, The Constructor, and Middleone got on famously, and there was much construction of bionicles (which took over most of the living room floor). As we left, our friend

yelled excitedly "Look, it's a Christmas Beetle!", we all rushed over --- to see a cockroach. A native cockroach that helps break down leaf litter, not the imported ones that live in garbage, but a cockroach none the less. For a real Christmas beetle, see the image to the left, taken around Christmas last year.

After much giggling and careful inspection of the cockroach, and lots of farewell hugs we waved goodbye and drove away.

The Bettdeckererschnappender Weisle and the boys have gone to stay with the rellies down at the beach near Wilsons Promontory, while I'm getting ready to go back to work, and write a few articles on upcoming interesting things.

I hope your Christmas - New Year break was happy and safe, and I wish you a great 2007, filled with grand astronomical treats.

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 1:29 pm