I can feel the adrenaline of usual Dock life dribbling out through my feet… My limbs feel heavy (in a nice way) and I suddenly have a strong desire to do absolutely nothing but read a trashy book while being warmed by the sun.  On second thoughts maybe the book part will be too much effort.  Don’t you love this feeling?  It’s called ‘The Start Of Being On Holiday’…

While I am away, this blog won’t lie dormant, so keep checking in – there are a few updates coming your way with some exciting news from Sunday Sundaes.  For now, a few photos of Sunday Sundaes in action – so if you stayed at home watching Andy Murray blitz Wimbledon (WOOHOO!), here’s a taste of what you missed!

On the theme of all this chilling out, the Dock Walks and Titanic Slipway Pilgrimage walks will also be taking a little breather for the rest of July – so exchange your walking boots for flip-flops for a few weeks and see you in August!

Praying for Belfast, praying for the world… no better way to start the Summer!

Throughout July, the Dock prayer garden is host to a rather fabulous little installation by Abby, a long-time Dock supporter (she was there in the early days of brainstorming in coffee shops!) who is currently a student at vicar-training-school in Dublin.

She has transformed the garden into a series of thought-provoking, imaginative stations where you can pause, pray and reflect.  There’s a wall where you can pray for different parts of Belfast city – and in particular pray for peace in the city in these coming weeks.

There’s another section where you can engage in prayer for different situations around the world – and even write a postcard to a particular individual in need somewhere else on the planet – a message which will be delivered to them personally thanks to the work of the charity Open Doors.

The whole concept is based around rivers – so we now have a ‘river’ flowing through the garden! – and trees – and so the Dock prayer tree is already starting to grow new leaves and branches as different prayers are added.  The hope is that our garden will continue to grow and blossom as the summer progresses.

Call in soon and have a look!  As always no-one will approach or pressurise you – the pictures show the Prayer Garden being launched during yesterday’s Dock Walk, but during the week you’re free to engage at your own pace.

Tears in The Dock today…   (Well, not tears, but plenty of “I’m sad but I’m just TOO FLIPPIN’ MANLY to let it show”-style moments)

Today was Tim’s last regular day of pouring coffee as a Dock intern – as you can tell from his smart new haircut, he’s got himself a job out there in the real world and starts work at 9am on Monday morning.  (Ha!  9am on Monday morning actually does not exist in Dock World – there’s just no such thing.)

In his year as Dock intern, Tim has been just fantastic.  He’s helped dream-up and decorate the prayer garden, painted the floor, collected furniture, led worship, fetched the sandwiches, encouraged the volunteers, christened the new dishwasher, manned the coffee bar, and – of course – opened & closed the cafe more often and poured more cups of coffee than either he or I can count.   He has done all these things with a wonderfully, uniquely Tim-esque mixture of laid-backness and enthusiasm.  He has also, in the course of the year, got engaged, signed up to lead a 24-7 prayer team to Ibiza – and now is going to sort out the world of computers into the bargain.

We’re delighted for him – but we’ll miss him a lot.

Pssst…. save the date…. we’re hoping to throw a little Dock bash on Sunday afternoon 7th July, when we can thank Tim for all his amazing work over this past year – as well as a few other bits of exciting Dock news.  Watch this space and save the date!

Thanks to everyone who suggested captions on the Dock blog and Facebook – but I think I have to give it to Sheila:

Honourable mention to Alan who correctly spotted that i was desperately fighting to stop gesticulating wildly while talking, as I usually do, in case the security forces thought I was waving my arms in a threatening manner!

If you want to find out what Her Maj and I actually did chat about, exactly a year ago as I write, click here.

This time last year I was reluctantly, grumpily (men hate buying clothes) being cajoled into buying a smart new suit.  The reason for this unprecedented, unrepeated sartorial extravagance?  Because, a year ago tomorrow, I was going to be shaking hands with a rather special lady – and my ratty old suit just wouldn’t do…

You can see the suit and the lady in the picture  – but what you can’t see is what I’m saying, or what Her Maj said in response, or what the people with quizzical expressions were thinking.  So, open to you, World Wide Web – there’s a good picture for a Caption Competition if ever I saw one!