Worldwide press coverage, the biggest-ever Dock Walk, meeting the neighbours, celebrating the past… it’s been a flipping amazing week!

Things kicked off in style with the Angus Buchan event at the Odyssey last weekend.  It was great to meet loads of people from all over the country who had travelled to hear Angus’s story – and to see the massive wave of response when he called for people to stand up and make a commitment to building peace in Northern Ireland.  Loads of brilliant people called into the Dock prayer room – some for prayer, some for a chat, some to admire the view of the TQ through the window!  A great weekend.

Then for me & Sus it was a trip off down memory lane… we returned to Mossley Parish, our home church, for its 40th-anniversary service.  Amongst many notable achievements during its 40 years, Mossley is responsible for introducing a tongue-tied 17-year-old Chris Bennett to the exotic blonde Susan Maguire who had just arrived at the Youth Group barbeque… history in the making!  Gillian and Alan, who organised the barbeque and are therefore to blame for all that followed, are with us in the pic.

Then… biggest Dock Walk EVER!  Thanks to a visitation from all my old chums from Carrowdore and Millisle (who are still surviving as a church despite having me in charge of them for a year), over 50 of us walked, talked, prayed and worshipped in the sun last Sunday afternoon.

We even got to see (for the first time on a Dock Walk) around the beautiful old Drawing Rooms – they were open as a special occasion in preparation for the Big Launch Event on Tuesday.  Speaking of which…

You’ve already had me making a takeover-bid on your TV screens and airwaves – so if you haven’t already seen the footage of that monumental, emotional 62-second cheer, click here.  For now, here are a few new angles on the event; the people in the picture to your left are the Mayors of Belfast, Southampton, Cherbourg and Cobh – all the places which Titanic touched in its brief timespan.  The chap in the photos below  is Hugh Robinson (with his minister, Roger, one of my friends from the Arrow course) who discovered in his attic a faded old postcard of Titanic under construction.  On closer examination, the postcard had been written and posted within a few hours of Titanic’s Launch, telling the story of that great day from one of its original eyewitnesses.  Quite a piece of history! – and so Hugh, Roger and the postcard were a bit of a cause celebre out on the boats which gathered on the Lough to sound their horns at 12:13 on Tuesday.

As if to further cement my ‘Titanic nerd’ credentials during the past week or two, as well as my over-enthusiastic cheering and my hard-hat tour of Nomadic, I went to a lecture in the City Hall (a lecture!  voluntarily!) about one small detail of the Titanic story – the ‘mystery ship’ which some of the survivors claimed to have seen in the distance, failing to respond to Titanic’s distress calls.  It’s just such a fascinating story – I really enjoyed the lecture!  (never thought I’d write that…)

And so to this weekend – and another fantastic time meeting the neighbours – the sun shining on our deckchair cafe as the new community in the TQ started to chat, bond, meet, connect… such a privilege to be part of it all!