Audio description: The Rain It Raineth Every Day by Norman Garstin Penlee House Gallery & Museum Hanging on the wall before us is The Rain It Raineth Every Day by Norman Garstin, dating from 1889. ItÕs a large oil on canvas about a metre tall by a metre and a half wide, or 3 foot tall by 5 foot wide, in a thick, gold-painted frame. It shows Penzance Promenade on a wet, grey, rainy day, with a few people dotted around. The soaking, mottled grey promenade stretches the whole width of the canvas at the bottom of the painting, and then recedes into the misty distance, curving to the right around a rough, grey sea. A small white wave splashes up onto the promenade in the centre of the painting, crashing over iron railings which line the seafront. On the left side of the promenade is a road lined by streetlamps, and the buildings of Penzance town: those in the foreground are cream and russet. The silhouetted rectangular tower of St MaryÕs church rises behind these in the middle distance. Muted, grey- brown, fog-covered buildings continue into the background, stretching right around the bay. There are about a dozen people scattered along the promenade: some are very small figures in the distance, some are featured in the foreground of the painting. Closest to us, on the left-hand side of the painting and walking towards us, are a couple of girls, huddling under a black umbrella. A teenage girl is on the right, wearing a beige, brimmed hat which conceals her eyes, and a muddy green mac, over a calf-length dress, covered by a muted pink apron. Her arm is around a younger girl, on the left ÑÊa dark-haired, pale child of about ten, with blue eyes, a rosebud mouth and a solemn expression. She wears a brown cloche hat and a knee length blue dress, and is tucked under the older girlÕs coat to protect her from the rain. Moving further into the painting, towards the right of the midground, an elegant woman walks close to the sea, her back to us. She wears a full-skirted brown coat and black hat with a flower on top, and carries a black umbrella. She looks over her left shoulder towards two dogs, one black and one mainly white with dark splodges. The woman lifts her skirt with her left hand to avoid it getting splashed as she walks along. Other figures are further away from us, concentrated on the left, near the road. ThereÕs a small, soggy horse and cart, a couple of people standing around it, and a helmeted policeman walking away from us, a short cape round his shoulders. A curious aspect of this painting is that though there are people in the scene, the centre of the image is completely taken up by the empty, wet expanse of the promenade itself, mottled grey and brown. It suggests the inescapable wetness of the rain and sea on a stormy day. END OF AUDIO DESCRIPTION