So a month or so ago I got an email from my editor letting me know my latest book had been accepted (yay) and asking me whether I could ‘squeeze in’ a novella before my next deadline. I hesitated because my schedule was carefully constructed to give me some time off over Christmas after I wrote-through the last two holiday seasons.

“It’s a Christmas book…” she hinted.

Mmmmm… vaguely more interested, I’ve never written a Christmas book… Then she brought out the kryptonite

“…and it has to have puppies in it.” 

A puppy-based Christmas book. SOLD!

Image courtesy Wikipedia under Creative Commons

Instead, mine’s about a litter of wild-dogs and the conservationists working to help save them.

Aren’t they adorabubble!! African Wild Dog pups. I’ll let you know how I go when it’s all over!!  Back to the keyboard…

So today I was stuck in traffic on the freeway and I noticed a large moth fly out from beneath the car in front. It fluttered around the rear of the car, sped up and then flew back under to its hiding place.

Then, a few moments later it flew out again, fluttered around in the wake of the car and then sped-up and flew back under the car.

It did this until we hit about 60km/hr and then it stayed under the car.

Even though it was large, moths still have flimsy wings and fairly flimsy body structures. But this thing was keeping up with a car doing up to 60kms. I have to assume it was taking a lot of it’s movement from the draft of the car (like cyclists do to conserve energy) but I became entirely transfixed on this display while driving (and terrified that I’d run it over if it slipped out of the car’s ‘jet stream’).

It didn’t. I didn’t. And I have no idea where it ended up.

God’s speed, little moth! Nature really is amazingly well designed.