Last weekend was a 3-day one in all of the states of Australia except Western Australia. We call it the Queen's Birthday weekend, even though it is not exactly the Queen's birth date. I love long weekends because the Oldies always find time to do more interesting things than they can manage on ordinary weekends. Mostly we stay around Canberra because the roads are full of people driving fast and crazy. This weekend was even better because the weather was much warmer than it usually is at the start of winter. Saturday night we finally got the chance to learn how to drive Mum's new telescope. Actually, it was delivered 3 years ago and we have been waiting for a clear night with no other commitments to slowly learn the operating system. I have to say that the 'scope is a little beauty. It fits into our car easily, takes only a few minutes to set up and another 15 to calibrate, then it automatically finds whatever you ask for. Dad is particularly impressed. He spent his working life using huge telescopes and now we have a small one that finds things just like the big ones do. I can see a lot of cold nights outside under the stars coming up. On Sunday we drove up to Bredbo because the Christmas Barn has just opened for the year. This is a magic place for small bears. It is full of Nativity and Santa stuff. Speaking of Santa, the Bredbo clone was still snoozing in the Sun, just where I saw him last year. Hopefully he is sneakily reporting to his boss and Santa thinks of the same thing that I am thinking would go well towards completing my vehicle collection.
Labels: astronomy, Canberra, Christmas, Santa
# posted by Bart Bear @ 12:13 pm
