It's no secret that sea-glass is a wonderful thing. While I'm not particualy partial to the brown blobby bits, I LOVE the white and ADORE the aqua shades that you sometimes find. The other reason that I'm enamoured by the stuff, is that I enjoy the 'circle of life' moment that it represents; glass is essentially made from molten sand, so how amazing that that glass is then returned to the sand!After recently reading a book which made reference to sea glass, and trying to explain to the girls what it was (and really it is a terrible and wonderous thing when you think about it; someone tosses a broken bottle into the ocean (BOO) and the ocean's tides and rough sand slowly polishes the ragged edges until the shards are oh so soft and tactile (WOO HOO)), imagine my surprise, and Little Lotti's, when we went to a beach that was literally strewn with sea glass. If you're lucky enough to find sea glass on the beach, be sure to let your little ones know that not all the glass lying around is safe to pick up (BOO HOO.)
On this particular day, Mimi was at kindergarten, and after being sick for most of last week, it was wonderful to walk slowly, sit under the hot sun in damp sand, run my fingers through the shelly-sand and unearth all the pieces of sea glass and roll them up in my tshirt for taking home.
As fate and Australia's iconic beer bottles would have it, most of the glass we were finding was poo-brown, but we did manage to find some much more beautiful pieces to bring home (ok, so I brought the sea-foam shades home while Lotti only wanted to collect the poo-bits... gotta love preschoolers!)
Lotti washed the sea glass off when we got home and put it into a plastic aqua bowl... the sea glass now takes pride of place on the side table, and reminds me of how nice life is when I slow my pace.
Remember to take your time people; enjoy your children's company, sit in sunshine, and look, really look, at the wonderful world around you!
Linda.
