Western Springs

Went to gather a collection today. And what a glorious day to have done so! Blue skies as far as the eye could see and no wind at all :) I think I got carried away enjoying myself and didn't really focus much on the collecting. Which is fine, I 'collected' heaps of photographs and 'interacted with my environment'! So thats the most important thing!!!!
I forget how cool Western Springs is! So many different types of 'wild' life there! Heaps of birds but also adorable wee skinks (who all came out and were bathing in the sun, but scuttled away as soon as i got near!), gross eels, wee fish in the ponds. I had a pukeko follow me around the whole place! From start to finish.
Was a lovely way to spend a morning and also helped concrete my desire to encourage people to get out and about and into their environments and explore these types of places again. And regularly!
On the way I saw such an ironic scene. A mother and child were walking to school/daycare and the child was bending over to pick up something from the grass but he could only reach with one hand and was uncomfortably stretched as his mum was holding his other hand and was half bent down and talking on the phone and had NO idea what the kid was doing. I thought....so sad! Why doesn't the mum bend over and look too? Put her phone away while she walks to school with her son. Maybe it was a really important phone call but surely it could have waited 20 minutes!