Can you dig it?

In case I haven’t emphasised this enough -WIP really does offer a diversity of experience – this thought struck me as I sat hunched on my knees in the middle of a playground in Ballymun attempting to spray paint the outline of a hop scotch square with all the geometrical care of Pythagoras. As it turned out the square was more of rhombus but as me and Colm (my company in this task) circled the playground we found several perspectives which made our handiwork look more like a playground as opposed to acts of wanton vandalism. Like any good workmen we blamed our tools – or maybe our lack of precision was an after effect of having spent the afternoon at an intoxicatingly- close proximity to spray paint. However the school’s headmistress seemed happy with our work or else didn’t want to shatter our paint speckled good humour.

By the end of the day, our team had dug several vegetable patches, a butterfly garden, weeded flowerbeds and painted a playground for the Ballymun Regeneration Project.

And that is what WIP should be about- challenging yourself and trying to give something back to the community and during a summer of challenging (and often surreal) experiences there was always someone there experiencing it with you. The weekend in Dublin reminded me how much I really loved this summer and the people I spent it with– or maybe that’s just the spray paint talking.