Pink T-shirts are here!

The Giro is coming… the Giro is coming… The Titanic Quarter is abuzz with excitement as we prepare for another mad, busy, wonderful global event in our wee city…

As you can imagine, we’re prepared for a crazy weekend in The Dock.  Every volunteer has been refused any leave, illness, absence or any other shilly-shallying: it’s all hands on deck for our extending opening from 9am – 7pm on Friday and 9am – 5pm on Saturday.

We’ve laid on suitable amounts of coffee: James reckons this lot is enough to make 7000 cuppas!

And just in case all 7000 customers arrive at once, we’re spreading out for the weekend!  Joachim and the team have been busy all week setting up an overflow area in Block A of the ARC (that’s the shop unit at the far end of the apartments from Dock Cafe).  As well as overflow seating for Honesty Box cuppas, we’re setting this section up as a pop-up market featuring the very best of local entrepreneurs and suppliers.

It’s all overseen by Elaine – who you’ll recognise from the Dock Pop-Up Market (where she began her Waffle Hut selling tasty sweet and savoury waffles).  She’s bringing along some of her cohorts from the We Make Belfast pop-up shop – sweet-makers, illustrators, textile and pottery makers, home-made ice-cream, jewellery makers, photographers, purveyors of fresh seafood chowder and street food, and many more…

Watching them painting, furnishing and decorating the empty unit ready for Giro-Day brings me back to the rush to get ready for Eamonn all those moons ago…

Another Giro-related activity of the last few days saw an energetic team of Dock volunteers pick up the shovels to do some repair work to the amazing Wish land artwork beside Dock Cafe.  Having been slightly damaged by winter winds and puddles, we hope we’ve brought it back to its original splendour… we’ll find out from the helicopter footage at the start of the Giro!

And a sure sign that the Giro is nearly here: The Dock loo is (temporarily) no longer the only public loo at the ARC apartments (although it might just still be the nicest)

And one more reason (as if you needed one more) to visit The Dock over the Giro weekend: Look who’s back!!