A day in the life of a Soar TY workshop facilitator
Join me, Ciara, as I recount the journey and experience of travelling to Cork for an overnight stay to deliver a workshop the next morning!
Date: 18.10. 2 – 19.10.23
Destination: Co. Cork
On Wednesday, we gather at the Red Cow Luas stop – our favourite spot to reconvene as it is in the middle for all of us. This car park has seen too much over the years. I have beef with this stop – I have been clamped here (which was definitely not my fault), and the fact that there are no toilets here will forever pain me. But as usual, I rock up, park my car, make sure I pay for my parking (do not want to get clamped once again) and meet the others. Donal is driving us down, a blessing for me as long drives are not really my forte and I like being a passenger princess. However, there were 5 of us on this trip, meaning it was a pretty cosy car ride. We load up the boot, and then proceed to come up with a strategy over who gets to sit in the front seat of the car first, and the logistics to ensure everyone gets a chance to experience this. I begin in the middle seat, trying to get the worst spot over quickly.
We hit the road, Donal beginning the journey with his favourite genre - country music. The trip is roughly a 3-and-a-half-hour drive, and after nearly 2 hours in the middle seat, my legs, specifically my glutes, are beginning the cramp up. It’s time for a pit stop. There is an ongoing debate amongst us facilitators over which petrol station should be crowned superior. Personally, Apple Green’s are probably my favourite – and they usually come with a Burger King or McDonald’s. Some of the others prefer The Plaza stations, as they arguably do the best breakfast roll. But alas, we stop off at a Circle K, and run in to use the bathroom and grab a snack.
We get back on the road, I fall asleep for the rest of the journey (nothing new here) and the rain starts to set in the further we travel into the south. Luckily for us, we are travelling down through the aftermath of storm Babet. Not ideal considering the already low-down car is full of 5 people and a load of bags. A couple of diversions have to be made so Donal’s car doesn’t fully break down in the middle of a gigantic puddle.
Around 6pm, we pull up to our accommodation for the night near Kinsale. You never really know what you’re going to get when you travel to the middle of nowhere, but when I say this was one of the classiest places I have ever stayed, I mean it (shoutout to Orlagh, Lynn and Martin for finding this mad gaff and booking it for us). I manage to bag the nicest room, with a massive double bed, and make myself at home. The view is beautiful, even with the rain and dark skies. There’s something about being by the sea and being able to hear the waves that is so special.
Once we’ve settled in, we have a look at our google map options for dinner. Takeaway is suggested, but unfortunately Kinsale doesn’t do Deliveroo or Just Eat like Dublin does. So, we settle on some pub grub in the town. Not to toot my own horn, but I am pretty on the ball when it comes to picking a decent food spot, but it was Harriet that led us to this pub. The options are limited for a vegetarian like me, as they usually are in rural Ireland, but I survive. I ordered a yummy cheese board (very fancy) and some chips, while the others enjoy their steak and fish and chips. Unfortunately, Harriet didn’t rate her fish chowder, so she stole some of my cheese and crackers L. On the way back to the car, we pop into the Centra to pick up a few bits for breakfast the next morning (so organised I know).
After dinner, we head back to the house to chill and get a good night’s rest. I have a shower and hop into bed to watch some Gossip Girl on Netflix and read my book before going off the sleep. The bed was comfier than the one I own at home, so safe to say I slept like a baby
Fast forward to the morning, my alarm goes off at 7.30am and I hop up and get dressed in my usual facilitator outfit – dungarees (see my website profile picture for reference if you don’t believe me). We gather in the kitchen, spend about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to turn the stove on, and then begin cooking breakfast. I eat some porridge, and some eggs on toast thanks the collective cooking effort. I always try to fuel myself up for the day, nothing worse than being hungry during a workshop.
We leave for the school straight after breakfast, and don’t have time to grab a coffee much to the team’s disgrace. We arrive at the school, and get set up, splitting into two groups. I don’t have any photos from this workshop unfortunately as there was a no photo policy. But Donal and I smashed it, and thoroughly enjoyed meeting and learning from the young people in this workshop. It was very rewarding.
After checking in with the teacher afterward, we went on our way (with fresh sandwiches kindly provided by the school’s cafeteria). It was too difficult to have a proper debrief of the workshop and go into specifics of the day in the car, so we arranged a call for the next day to do so. Instead, we just checked out with any leftover emotions or feelings we were having having left the workshop. I, once again, fell asleep after this, for the majority of the car ride.
We made one pit stop to grab a snack, and give Orlagh (our manager) a call, to update her on how the workshop went.
The last leg of the trip felt like it lasted for ages, as the traffic coming back into Dublin on Thursday evening was chock a block. This is the part of the trip where you descend into something we like to call a state of post workshop madness, where you are pretty exhausted and reach a point of finding anything and everything hilarious.
Donal kindly dropped us off at the red cow, where we said our goodbyes and got back into our own cars (thankfully unclamped) and made our way home. Safe to say I went straight to bed once I got home, after a long but satisfying day.