walking by the seals

There's an increasingly long fence on Wells beach that annoys me ,  and notices telling us to : ' help protect seals hauled out on the beach , and keep dogs on lead or under control .'  I know it shouldn't annoy me, and that i surely care about the seals - i do , but perhaps i care about the holiday makers more,  so much of the good strip of beach is taken from them . I'm surprised at my attitude , maybe its just notice boards put in the way of me and the sea.

       I was out early and they were there , the seals ,  safely fenced off, glowing eyes , and simultaneously  doing an anxious slither when they saw Neddy , but when they realized how harmless he was ( obsessed by his ball), they continued to lie on the sand . I'm constantly drawing them , and today i only had a clumsy pen .

   I quickly drew a horrible speed boat going out to sea  , with their fishing rods placed in the front like spears , well they are spears as far as the fish are concerned , and the hunters standing proud as the boat wallops the water .But for a quick drawing i needed  to know more than i saw then , that combination of aggression and pleasure - their stance on the boat - the shape of it , all went by  too fast .

     Neddy was swimming , returning with his ball while the boat went past .

    I wondered about swimming too, but i haven't quite got the real swimmers attitude , and anyway all this, all this blogging, and drawing, and growling at notices , is to distract me from the pain of  my show  coming soon , and to get into that grey green chilly sea might leave me too raw . Unless someone was there safe with a warm towel and hot tea and biscuits .

     I've  the beginning of a swim i did last summer on a 4ft high canvas , to finish one day after a different sort of golden swim .