Someone gave me a fab present today.  Alastair, who is a new member of the Dock team, was catching up as a newbie to the story-so-far of The Dock, and went right back to the beginning of this blog to follow the adventure right from the start.  He then copied and pasted all my blog posts from the last 2-and-a-half years into one humungous document, which now nestles on my hard-drive, taking up entire terabytes of space with its one hundred and nine thousand words!

How did I ever write so much?   (Even if you could probably halve that word count by removing the superlatives).   I suppose at least part of the answer is that The Dock truly has been an adventure, full of twists and developments that I never could’ve predicted or expected – and it’s been fun to share that story as the pages have turned.  Starting with the blank page – catching the vision – seeing the team grow – walking tours – new friends – meeting the neighbours – business plans, TV documentaries and Titanic Ambassador duties – to boat or not to boat? – the Meanwhile contract and Dock Cafe – Eamonn Day – blessings all mine, and ten thousand besides…

So I’ve just spent an emotional wee hour looking back over some of those blog posts.  There have been tough days.  But realising that days like today (which involved some brilliant, brain-stretching meetings with the great teams who keep the Dock running, some exciting forward planning, and being part of our busiest day ever at Dock Cafe) started so small, such a comparatively short time ago, makes me very, very thankful.  Have a closer look at this pic – taken (like all the others here) on Day One of the Dock – you’ll see that the building which now contains Dock Cafe was only half-built back when we started!

If you’re a new arrival and want to see how it all started, the link to the very first Dock blog post is here.  Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to read all 109,000 words of all the rest of them – respect, Alastair, respect!