Battleships. With Noah. First evening in the forest.
We were evenly matched when I spied, out of the corner of my eye, a leaf falling. About 30cm from the ground, its trajectory changed. Surprisingly, upwards and towards Noah. The "Leaf" had wings; wings it was flapping furiously. And, uncannily, the "Leaf" was exactly the same shape as a beetle…only bigger. Much bigger. So fucking big, in fact, that had I not thought to interupt its journey towards my tired-from-travelling, non-big-bug-loving oldest son, our holiday may have taken a turn for the worst on its first day.
Casually, so as not to attract unecessary attention towards the intruder, I raised myself from my chair and lifted a rather large foam pool toy (Noah was concentrating on his next move). Blessed by the flying beast's lack of similar grace - its ability to fly with speed clearly hindered by the sheer weight of its mighty, armoured shell – it wasn't even slightly tricky to deliver it a most satisfactory thwack, blasting the wee horned monster, at tremendous and uncharacteristically high speed, numerous metres through the trees.
Thankfully, both our boys soon grew to befriend and later even love what became frequent evening visitors to our tent (occasionally eight at a time - which was taking a bit of a liberty if you ask me).
Bloody hell... what the hell beast is that? I would have absolutely freaked out, the beetle is the size of a bloody tree stump!! Well your a braver than me, I would have packed up my tent and headed to the nearest Travelodge. Great photos.
Posted by: Rory | 27 July 2010 at 08:47 AM
amazing!! the first photo of him rearing up is like something from The Lost World
Posted by: K | 29 July 2010 at 10:06 AM