A quick pause for breath: a moment to give thanks for the week that’s just passed, before hurtling headlong into the week that is to come!

First of all a quick compilation of some of my highlights of this past week – grand openings, open-air cinemas, boats, walks, choirs, tears, hope…!

And a beautifully-made video (not produced by me, as should be abundantly obvious) of the fantastic Yardmen Walk last Sunday:

Paused?  Given thanks?  Right! – on to the next week, and yet more days full of colour, excitement, creativity and joy on the streets of Belfast.
The international market is open for business as of today in the Titanic Quarter (just beside the slipways); the cars are making their way from the City Hall for the Circuit of Ireland Super Special Stage in TQ; the lights and gleamy boxes of tricks are being set up on the slipways for the not-to-be-missed Light Show at Titanic Belfast tomorrow night.  (I did laugh when I noticed that at one stage the preparations involved beaming a humble Windows desktop screen onto the flanks of Titanic Belfast (pic right) – do these creative types not usually use Macs?!)

If you’re trying to keep track of it all, I’ve updated the wonderful-amazing-diary-of-all-things-Titanic with yet more events (and a few wee corrections) – I really hope you’re all getting the use of it – I certainly am!  Each day it’s great to check out what’s on offer and then give things a go – that’s how I ended up at the open-air A Night To Remember, a performance of The Boat Factory in Titanic Belfast, on a tour of SS Nomadic… each one utterly, captivatingly brilliant – and I’ve heard rave reviews from those who chose other options like the lecture series in PRONI or the Titanic Diaries in Titanic Belfast.  Go on – don’t miss out on all these amazing opportunities – don’t let the slightly feeble Sunday-night ITV Titanic effort put you off – there are loads of stories, discoveries and perspectives still to be explored… C’mon!

Rumour has it that there are some things happening in the world this week that are not Titanic-related…  And in fact one of them is vastly more important:  It’s Holy Week.

For those of us for whom the cross of Jesus is the foundation of our faith, this is not to be missed, not to be rushed.  Just as I’m enjoying trying some of the lectures, plays, films and events in the stupendous-timetable-of-all-things-Titanic, looking for new perspectives, insights and understandings on a well-known story, it’s important to find new angles and viewpoints on the familiar but shocking, terrible but wonderful story of the betrayal, arrest, mock-trial, humiliation and crucifixion of Jesus – and to fully enter into the story, not rushing over the difficult bits just because we know the big reversal is coming on Easter Day.

So can I recommend two new perspectives I’ve been finding helpful this year? – the first is on the Wordlive site (which you can always find linked at Connect/Wordlive on the Dock homepage).  Wordlive is always, wholeheartedly, passionately recommended by Dock-world as a daily habit, whether as podcast, app or website – an endlessly-creative way to engage with the Bible.  This week (towards the bottom of the page on the website each day) they have included a beautifully-dramatised perspective on the story as seen through Mary’s eyes – a beautiful way to open up a new dimension on the story.

Or you could try the 10-minute ‘From the Darkness to the Dawn‘ slots on Radio Ulster each night from 11:50pm-midnight.  By a rather neat coincidence (if you believe in such a thing), the reflections for the 4th, 6th and 7th April  are all led by people with a connection to Dock-World, and help to walk through the events of Holy Week day-by-day, pausing to reflect at each step.

And still on the theme of radio, you might remember that a few weeks ago Hardeep Singh Kohli and the team from BBC Radio 2 joined us on the Dock Walk as part of the series ‘Great British Faith’.  The episode featuring Belfast was transmitted last night and is now on iPlayer – here – so give it a listen.  I’m taking a bit of a risk posting the link – I haven’t heard it myself yet – so hopefully the Dock comes out of it all OK!  (if you’re searching through the show, Hardeep said that it was likely that we would feature towards the end of the programme).   Enjoy!

I don’t really know where to start this post… how do you put into words a weekend like the one I’ve just had?  How much fun is it possible for one bloke to have?!

I suppose I could show you some pictures of the highlights (I’ve heard they paint a thousand words after all) –  but where to begin?  With the gala dinner at Titanic Belfast on Friday night, where I had the HUGE privilege of saying grace before the meal, and got to see the slipways lit up at night for the first time?
 But what if it paled in comparison to the grand opening on Saturday morning, where I got a front-row view alongside Rodney, one of the people involved in the whole TQ project since its very inception (no big celebs, some complained – I say that if this was a celebration of all that NI has achieved in recent years, then NI people should cut the ribbon – we don’t need to import a Hollywood star for our big moment!)

 But what if an even greater highlight was taking one of the first public tours with my family and friends –

Followed by exploring the BREATHTAKING job that’s been done on the Titanic and Olympic slipways for the first time (much, much more to come on that later…!)

And what if the dinner on Friday night was immediately trumped by the dinner on Saturday night, spent in the unbeatable company of the Titanic Walking Tours gang?

And what if the highlight then became the Yardmen walk on Sunday morning, footstepping the dockers on their way from East Belfast to the slipways?
But what if the Dock Walk that afternoon was even more special, as we finally stood, walked, prayed and worshipped in Titanic Belfast and on the slipways after peering at them through the fence on every previous Dock Walk since Day One?!

And what if that Dock Walk was then topped by the one on Monday 2nd April – the day Titanic left Belfast – which began with a breakfast in Titanic Belfast featuring a showstopping new choral piece sung by a shared medley of school choirs on the Grand Staircase, a display of vintage cars and a balloon-release:
– and then included the Dock Walk to mark Titanic’s departure, tracing her story from beginning to the day she sailed down Belfast Lough into the sunset and marking the centenary of that moment by standing on the spot where Robert Welsh stood to take his iconic photograph
– before watching A Night To Remember for the first time in the open air cinema at the Thompson Dock (complete with rain shower at the exact moment the Titanic sank on screen – talk about interactive cinema!)
 Or was the highlight a preview tour of SS Nomadic this morning – which looks awesome even in its work-in-progress state?

You see my problem?! – when every day is better, more joyful, more hopeful, more moving – how can I keep describing it?  How can I keep finding new superlatives?  How can my words ever express or give thanks for the immense, blessed days we are living through?

2nd April is Belfast’s Titanic Day.   Construction complete, paint shining, propellers turning, boilers boiling, pistons pumping, she was taken on a few test laps of Belfast Lough – her sea trials – throughout the day on 2nd April, at the end of which she had her Board of Trade classification (her ship’s MOT certificate, good for one year from date of issue!)

Then at 8pm she sailed down Belfast Lough, steaming towards Southampton.  One last photograph was taken by a Belfast photographer – the iconic image above – before her story moved on to Southampton, Cherbourg, Cobh, and then, within only 12 days of that photograph being taken, the sickening crash, the frantic, tragic hours of her loss in the icy Atlantic.

But today is our day.  Many, many times over the past few weeks we’ve heard the Belfast motto – ‘She was all right when she left here!’.  Today is the ‘when’, and Titanic Quarter is the ‘here’, in that motto – so we’re going to mark the occasion with a special Dock Walk tonight.  Meeting at Dock Cafe at 7pm, walking past the Drawing Offices, Slipways and Thompson Dock – where she was designed, built, fitted-out and finished – to look down Belfast Lough in the same direction as that photographer 100 years ago, and mark the moment at 8pm when Titanic disappeared into the horizon.

See you there!

Lots to keep you on your feet today:

11am Yardmen Walk and service
– meeting at 11am at Westbourne Presbyterian for a combined Dock/Westbourne service
– departing from Pitt Park  at 12:45 for the Yardmen Walk along the old dockers’ route into the Titanic Quarter

3:33pm Dock Walk
– meeting at Dock Cafe at 3:33 as always for the Dock Walk today – but nothing else will be as usual! – today we will walk around Titanic Belfast, walk on the slipways where Titanic was built, trace its outline on the ground, stand at the spot where it hit the water… everything we’ve been looking forward to for the past 2 years!

7pm on Monday 2nd April – ‘She Was All Right When She Left Here’ Dock Walk
– we’re meeting at 7pm at Dock Cafe tomorrow night for a special Dock Walk to mark a very special moment.  Titanic left Belfast, after a day of sea trials in Belfast lough, at 8pm on 2nd April – and so our walk will take us to the Thompson Dock where we can look down the Lough and mark the moment the ship disappeared into the sunset 100 years ago.

Right – off to Westbourne – I have thousands of photos to show you of this spectacular, emotional, joyful dream of a weekend – but that’ll have to wait for later!

Get your walking shoes on!