Okay, it’s not exactly news when it’s 6 weeks or so later but I learnt only recently about the return of a sculpture stolen from outside a Belfast library.

I’d been back over in November when the bronze piece was stolen from Ormeau Library one dark evening and it gutted me at the time, not least because I had made, for pleasure, a video of the area back at the start of the year. The sculpture of a young woman reading a book by Daniela Balmaverde had always cheered me up and it tied the area together perfectly, standing not just outside a library but opposite a beautiful park and on the bank of a river leading to the sea – a symbol of freedom and possibilities. I had it right at the start of my video:

It appears that a scrap metal dealer tried to sell the sculpture to an antique dealer whose suspicions were aroused. Now it has been returned to the library.