It has been pretty wet and rainy since I arrived in Devon and have had to content myself with painting indoors, not that indoors isn’t wonderful, it is. Here I am with my sister Ellie and my niece Rosie and I am having a lovely time. We have been walking in the wind and the rain and I bought some flowers to paint.

But today there was a moment of sunshine around midday and we all donned our walking boots and went to Bantham Sands, Ellie and Rosie to walk with Gem and me to paint in the howling wind with sand blistering, rain tempremental and great rolls of black seaweed scurrying across the beach. Get away, get away!

I had little say in how the paint and water would spread themselves across the paper, the wind took care of that.

Fingers cold and now too much sand in my palette, I decided to walk up the hill behind the beach, where I found a bench, but the wind was still howling, perhaps even more so up there. I had to use jam jars to hold my paper down!

Finger prints and jam jars all part of the attraction you know. Now here I am sitting at Ellie’s kitchen table, the fresias I bought yesterday for painting have opened their petals and the scent is so sweet.

I leave Devon tomorrow and on Wednesday start my journey home.

à bientôt