A world in a grain of sand

This morning was good.

Well, it started a bit sooner than I'd like, with Little Man crying 'Mmm, Mum, Mhm' at 6:15. Ouch. However, as we were all up and dressed so early I decided to make the most of the time and took the kids to the park.

The playgrounds here are built on sand, which means that if you go equipped with a bucket and spade it's possible to build sandcastles, which is just what we did. We dug some lovely holes and built some interesting structures which we decorated with autumn leaves. When we dug one hole we found a tiny green bucket that someone must have left behind - some exciting treasure for April!

The park was particularly beautiful today because it was completely covered in a carpet of leaves. The sun was low and shining and it caused the dew-spotted leaves to sparkle. There were so many leaves falling down that it looked like the sky was snowing gold.

In the trees there were rose-ringed parakeets (they can be found living wild all over the city) and on the ground we saw two foraging jays.

April also said she saw some worms. She was very pleased with this nature 'spot'.

One of few pieces of poetry I can quote is the opening stanza of William Blake's 'Auguries of Innocence':

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

Full version here...

I like to think we followed Blake's advice today, by drinking in all the small details around us.