A Grain of Sand

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.

This beautiful poem by William Blake epitomises the two days my partner, artist Banx, and my best friend and I just experienced at sensational Kingscliff, just over the Queensland/NSW border on the NSW coast. How ironic, that this weekend is our ‘Labour Day’ long weekend, and yet we all completely chilled, and relaxed, and I even purchased a pair of shoes from the I Love Billy range called Laziness!

The celebration of Labour Day has its origins in the 8 hour day movement, which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for rest (thank you Wikipedia!) – and this weekend we figured we’d better ‘celebrate’ the rest and recreation part! Once again ‘merci’ and gratitude come to mind – only the weekend before we had attended the very moving ANZAC Day dawn service at the Eternal Flame memorial in Brisbane; saying the biggest thank you’s of our lives to those who helped make Australia a free and wonderful county to live in - to cherish every day of our lives. This weekend it’s thank you to our hard-working forefathers, who fought so valiantly for our worker’s rights, all those workplace "given's" we now take for granted that make our lives more tolerable and balanced.. but also, this weekend it is ‘merci’ for wonderful friends, grains of sand that stick between my toes as I walk along Kingscliff Beach, funny dogs on the beach chasing shadows, the beautiful sunset beach wedding I witnessed early evening under a hot pink sky (who could ask for a better start to married life!), and eggs sunny side up this morning at Salt Village as the crashing crescendo of the ocean echoed in the background… ah! Sheer bliss…eternity in an hour..
PS The stunning black and white surfer image is another by my talented Brissie photographer brother Peter Hardie, check out his website for more great surfing images Down Under!
http://www.pbase.com/pshardie/sun_n_surf
The other two we photographed at Fingal Head not far from Kingscliff, well worth a visit!