Day 08 - David King

Day 8 allowed us to finally start constructing the playground. The team awoke at 5am in order to get up to the playground before the sweltering heat. The early start proved profitable as we were able to mark out twenty-one foundations for the structural posts in the adventure side of the playground; and dig around 15 of them to the required depth of 600mm by lunch. A lunch that we were more than ready for, after five hours digging in direct sunlight and temperatures that reached up to 34 degrees centigrade. 

For lunch, the school had pulled out all the stops, providing us with possibly a week's worth of food along with some much needed fluids. Lunchtime not only revealed how hospitable the wonderful staff at the school are, but also how limited the children's current schoolyard is for active play. Indeed, on returning from lunch we found that the children had started playing in the recently dug holes - occupying the majority of them. 

The afternoon session also proved to be fruitful as it allowed us to complete the remainder of the foundations and to provide the children with their first piece of playing equipment. After a great bit of 'wheeling and dealing' by Will & Lindsey, we managed to pick up a truck full of tyres at 50c (13p) a go. With all of the hardware still available to us, we decided to proceed on with the beginnings of the the tyre-run and balance beam towards the entrance of the 'adventure playground'. By 3:30pm as the buses arrived, our final tyre was being placed to which we were swarmed by children to give the apparatus its initial try. Despite being possibly the most basic apparatus in our design, the tyre-run proved an overwhelming success as the less-impressed bus drivers tried to herd the children on to their buses home. One of the children, Dennis (The Menace), even opted to walk home so he could give it a few more runs.