There’s a park at the end of our street. It’s a great park. It’s next to a river, there is lots of space to run around and almost all the dog owners that go there pick up their pets’ poop.
In this great (relatively poop-free) park is a great (completely poop-free) playground. This great playground recently had an overhaul and now is even greater and still poop-free.
As a kid I remember our local playground having a swing, an intimidatingly tall slide and a roundabout that was usually dominated by slightly mean big kids. I was always a bit scared of that roundabout. I was worried that if I got too close the big kids would push me on and not let me off or that if I got too close I’d get sucked underneath in that dangerous-looking gap they used to have.
Playgrounds have come a long way in the last 25 years. The playground at the end of our street has 4 different ‘play zones’ appropriate for varying ages. The playground carries a pirate theme (I think – it’s a pretty loose theme) and all the play equipment in one zone sits above a huge sand pit. The big kids hang out in zone 4 – but don’t seem to be too intimidating and there are absolutely no gaps in any of the play equipment that you can get sucked into. It’s totally awesome.
If I had to worry about one thing in the world of playground development (and I think I should) it would be ‘where do we go from here?’ How many zones can we have? How big can the sand pit get? How poop-free can we go? What kind of playground will Adlai and Koa take their kids to?
So spare a thought for the playground designers of tomorrow and pray that they get divine inspiration because as I stand in zone 2 of the playground at the end of our street – I don’t know how much better this can get.
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