St. Hubert

Today’s date is Tuesday but I’m reflecting back to Sunday. David needed me to take one of his paintings to the Royal Ulster Academy of Art offices. He’s trying to get one of his paintings from France into the October RUA show. I took a cab into town because there are no buses on Sunday morning--the painting had to be dropped off between 10 and 11 a.m. I had the cab drop me at city hall and I walked the remaining 10 minutes to the Cathedral Quarter to save money--the quarter is hard to get around in a car.
On my way, a young woman in a beat-up SUV pulled over and asked me where the RUA is. I was carrying a painting, so she figured we were going the same way. I didn’t know how to give her directions so I hopped in and together we found the offices.
As we waited in line, she told me she was from Limerick but worked near Ballina in County Mayo. She had driven 3.5 hours to drop off her sculpture and her sister’s paintings. You can see her work on this gallery page. The bronze sculpture she entered was of a giant silver stag whose two multi-pronged antlers were connected by a gold cross. The arms of the cross were uneven, more like twigs than a straight-limbed church cross. She said there’s a legend that St. Hubert, the patron saint of hunters, hunted for sport until he saw a stag with gold cross in its antlers. Afterward, he hunted only to satiate his need for food.
She wasn’t in a hurry to drive back to County Mayo, so we had breakfast then I took her to the Ulster Museum. First stop was the giant, stuffed Irish wolfhound. Her sculptures are of horses, foxes, greyhounds, etc., and she really enjoyed the beautiful shape of the big dawg. Then I took her to the Lavery gallery, one of my favourites. Then we saw the Game of Thrones tapestry. Then we had a quick look around Queen’s, including the jaw-droppingly gorgeous graduate centre. And then she was off.
I had wanted to go on a hike in the Mournes today with my hiking buddies and was a bit miffed I had to run an errand for David. Meeting Ester compensated for going into the city instead of the mountains.
Sunday evening I went to hear the East Side Choir sing six songs. Members of Women Aloud, a women’s writing group, read poems or short stories they wrote that were inspired by each of the six songs. It was an interesting idea and I enjoyed some of the poems.
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