Picture if you will the sight of a 36-year-old man reduced to the state of a child on Christmas morning by the excitement of walking into a half-finished building and seeing a load of scaffolding and plasterboard walls.  For that, dear reader, is what has become of your esteemed correspondent.  As if getting to see inside the new Metropolitan College last week wasn’t enough, this week the Dock Chaplains were part of a hard-hat tour group given an in-depth walk through the new Titanic Belfast visitor centre.

Just to set the excitement of this event in context, and hopefully make me look not-quite-so-weird, the emergence of Titanic Belfast from hole in the ground, to skeleton, to cladding-padded outline, to stunning visitor centre has been one of the big stories constantly turning its pages behind the scenes, just out of shot, throughout my time in the TQ.  How’s this for a before and after – 2010:

And 2011:

And so to finally get inside and under the skin of this fabulous project – yes I was excited!  So is it time for another Dock movie, I hear you ask?  Complete with overblown musical soundtrack to convey the drama of the situation?  Well…

So!  What a perfect, perfect way to draw a line under this little chapter of Dock life before Sus and I head off on holiday tomorrow.  Yet another door open.  As we sat down for a coffee in the Premier Inn afterwards, we were reflecting just how many doors have been opened to the Dock in this past year. The Met and Titanic Belfast are just the start.  The Premier Inn has opened its doors and welcomed us week by week.  The Walking Tours have led to all sorts of open doors – I have to admit I love having a pocketful of keys for the Drawing Offices, the slipways and the Pump House when I’m on tour duty.  And TQ Ltd have been incredible, opening the doors so that we can run deckchair cafes and Meet The Neighbours.

Which leads to one more reason for my light heart as we leave on holiday.  This time last year, everything in Dock-World ground to a halt for the couple of weeks that I was away.  This year, you’ll hardly notice I’m gone!  Meet The Neighbours events are still happening as usual (the next one’s on Saturday at 11am), the Dock Walks continue every Sunday at 3:33 in the Streat, emails to the Dock will get a response, there’ll be all sorts of news on the blog (no pressure Co!), even the Dock Management Team is meeting in my absence, confident that there’s plenty to be done!  It’s a new world, and a good world.  Profoundly, wonderfully, I am not All By Myself in this adventure any more.  Doors are opening and friendships are sparking into life.  God is working.  The Dock is on the move!