Well I took the child (my black lab Pol) to Formby beach today. Armed with sandwiches, a flask of coffee and a camera and sketch book I decided to brave the elements. The child took her constitutional dip in the waves and I took a few photographs. The beach was very windswept and the sky was absolutely glorious even though it was a pale grey colour. The waves were really crashing in and I took quite a few shots of them so hopefully inspiration will strike me at any moment and I'll start painting my first beach scene. Further inland a number of trees have been windswept over the years and form some quite interesting shape so I took a few photographs of them too. They'll always come in useful as background material for the stories I write.