First up, an invitation. Clear your diaries, book the babysitter, set the Sky+… next Tuesday (15th) you NEED to be in the Titanic Quarter for:

Yep, hard to believe that our little baby Dock project is now a toddler approaching its second birthday and learning to walk… and a birthday party is a chance to stop, step back to tell the story of the past year, and then celebrate in style!  There Will Be Cake…

And I’m bursting with excitement about the chance to tell this year’s story.  Some incredibly exciting Dock news and some big revelations will be unveiled amidst the cake and cookies and chocolate…

As a little taster, let me tell you about last Saturday.  Many’s the time you’ve heard me say on this blog that I’ve just had the best day EVER.  Well it happened again on Saturday – I’m losing count of how many Best Days one man can have…

The day started with a slap-up fried breakfast and a chance to share the Dock vision with a great, friendly bunch of people at the Dundonald Methodist Men’s Breakfast.  Suitably fed and fired-up, I headed back to the TQ for Meet The Neighbours – and as Karen has already shared, like pretty much every other MTN we’ve ever held, it was the best one yet!  The fun and buzz of being part of the build-up to the MTV EMA – the craic was mighty with the Belfast wing of the Justin-Bieber-omg-ilovehimsomuch movement (or the Beliebers as they prefer to be known) – who even asked for my autograph!

Trying to stay humble (ahem), it was also fantastic to be part of the chat with people from the apartments who are now starting to get to know each other, build up community, and really feel part of the place.  It was fantastic to hear one resident even out-enthuse me about how much she just loves the TQ!

And as an added bonus, we got to meet the guys who can often be spotted Spidermanning across the high buildings of the TQ washing the windows – John and Craig have seen the TQ from a whole different angle and they’re keeping it sparkly clean – respect!

So the morning was all about the future of the TQ and its emerging community.  The evening was all about the history of the TQ and the community who worked in the docks down through the years: we went to see The Boat Factory, a two-man play about the shipyards, the men who were their lifeblood, and the gutsy, rough pride they had in the dangerous but awe-inspiring work they were doing.

If you haven’t already seen The Boat Factory, if you get the chance, move Heaven and Earth to see it – it is superb.  Two actors brilliantly take on a variety of roles, sometimes switching through a series of characters within a single scene, to tell the full sweep of the story of the emergence of the shipyards from the mud of the Lagan.  Then the story settles down to concentrate on two characters – a nervous new apprentice and the cynical but poetic old hand who becomes his supervisor and ultimately his friend.  The full range of emotions and experiences – the induction rituals, the dirty jokes, the rivalries, the details of the job (with lines from Harland and Wolff instruction manuals counterpointing the action like a litany) – feel utterly real.

By the end (skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know!), by the time we join the two characters at ‘crow’s-nest-height’ at the top of the Arrol Gantries, looking out over the sprawl of Belfast from the Cave Hill to the Mourne Mountains, looking down on the shipyard that has broken their bodies but fired their souls, there are lumpy throats and muffled sobs throughout the whole audience, as a room-full of people taste and share the fierce pride of the men who built Belfast.  These are the shoulders we stand on.

So – best morning ever: a taste of the future.  Best evening ever: a taste of the past.  So if I tell you that the morning and the evening paled into insignificance compared to the afternoon – an afternoon with an invitation, an adventure, a journey, and a surprise – and if I told you that I’ll tell the story of that afternoon (and a few others which were just as good) at the Birthday Party, will you be there?

You’d better!