There is a wonderful writing blog called The Heroine Addicts that i was introduced to by Susanna Kearsley on FB. In the section on settings they issued a challenge to writing a scene set in Frenchman's Creek. Here's what happened when I attempted it:

Settings ~ Frenchman's Creek

They'd told her at the pub that it was a good trail, and that it was only a few miles to the creek. That had been three hours ago. Obviously their interpretation of the words good and few were different from hers.

Everything had started off fine. She'd found the old sign by a stile set in a break in the hedgerow, just as she'd been told, and parked on the verge, tight against the ageing hawthorn. Her easel and paint bag she'd easily slung over one shoulder; the large canvas she carried awkwardly under her other arm. The sun spread gentle warmth over the ploughed fields, sparrows sang from deep within the hedges that bordered the path on both sides, and Lena marvelled at the fresh green of the new leaves and the billows of white blackthorn flowers. By the end of the month these would be finished blooming and the hawthorn would take their place. She loved spring.

But that delight had soon given way to other things. As the path wound down towards the coast it narrowed and the smooth surface became rutted. The hedgerow was replaced by untamed woods – branches hung low over the trail, bracken and ferns encroached. Brambles sent young shoots snaking across, tangling around Lena's ankles. The air took on a briny scent but still, though at every twist and turn Lena hoped to catch a glimpse of water, the woods only became thicker.

At last, after losing her balance and almost tumbling down the hill, Lena was rewarded by the sight of the creek through the trees. And though her wrist ached from when she'd thrown her hand out to stop her fall, and the canvas she carried had three new dents in it, she knew it had all been worth it, scratched ankles and all.

She came out on a sort of bluff, overlooking the creek, not far from the mouth, where it flowed into the sea. Monterrey pines crested the edge, leaning out precariously over the water. A gap made by a fallen oak gave an open view of the perfect scene for her painting. She set her things down, took a drink from her water bottle, and the went to work assembling her easel. Lena set it up as close to the edge as possible, near the twining roots of the fallen tree. She laid her paints out on the tray and stood her canvas on the easel, then studied the vista before her to decide on the exact elements she would keep in her painting. The tumbled building, half hidden in the oaks, the hillock jutting out into the curve of the creek, and the still, protected water beyond it.

Clouds drifted over the sun, turning sky and water to pewter and softening the shadows. She began to paint. Ed was wrong, and Carrie too. She wasn't wasting her time. This would be her best painting yet.

“Why go to all that trouble?” Carrie had smirked, leaning possessively on Ed's arm. Ed didn't even bother to make the pretence of shaking her off. “You could go on line and get pictures of that morbid creek to paint from in the comfort of the house.”

“Nobody wants landscapes anymore,” said Ed. “You need to paint abstracts if you want to be accepted on the current scene.”

Lena remembered a time when Ed held her in his arms as he gazed at her paintings and told her what a great future she had as an artist. He told her a lot of other things too, about love and future happiness, but those were all abstract concepts that changed with the passage of time.

Lena worked furiously, paint flew from her palette, covering her canvas in liquid movement. She brushed her hair back behind her ear, and kept at it, oblivious to the cooling temperature and darkening sky. Carrie and Ed were forgotten. Let them have their little intrigues – it wasn't as if it were the first time. All that was important was getting what she saw before her onto the canvas.

A couple of drops of rain suddenly turned into a downpour. Lena grabbed her canvas and ran for the protection of the stand of pines. She leaned it against the trunk of one of the trees and rubbed her bleary eyes in an attempt to bring herself back to the here and now. She felt weighted down, as if she had just returned from some far off place and was suffering from jet lag. She turned to look at her painting and stepped back in surprise.

On the hillock that jutted out into the creek stood a young woman dressed in a long flowing gown that billowed around her. She was staring out over the water, an expression of yearning in her eyes and the curve of her lips. The water at her feet was wild, but beyond the hillock, the protected curve of creek was a calm, silvery green. A small ship, sails spread, was almost hidden in a soft mist. A boat was in the process of being lowered or raised from the deck. It was hard to tell which.

Lena stared at her painting in wonder then ran back out into the rain to the spot where she'd been painting. The hillock was empty, but through the dashing raindrops she thought she could see the dim shape of a ship under sail. She pulled her hair from her eyes, ran her hand over her face and looked again. Nothing. Only empty water, roughened by the splashing rain.