I'm 100% addicted to plein air painting in all weathers! Being someone who couldn't care less about what I'm wearing I thought nothing of donning thermal tights, fleece lined timberlands, a motheaten cashmere polo neck, all concealed neatly under a prized Christmas present of an adult sized dalmation onesie. And no I didn't swan out to Clapham Common boating pond in just that, over the top was my 'experienced' raincoat and thermal gloves. Perfect! Or so I thought. My painting well and truly under way, I stepped back to survey the scene in front of me. Bare branches of trees silhouetted by the low wintry light cast a mesmerising refracted pattern in the water. It was then that I noticed Karen a mother from my son's school. I called out a greeting. She peered out from her tailored woolen coat with fur trim. She didn't recognize me, so I waved again. It didn't take long for her teenage son to report back to my equally impressionable son that I had been seen in broad daylight with a dalmation onesie hood peeping out from an oil splattered rain coat. Poor child having an embarassing mother like me! His turn to give me a lecture about what not to wear...