I (Carol McArdle) spent my much of my childhood in cold winters and not-so-warm summers in England. I was often in drafty, not well heated boarding schools and I often felt that my bones were in a permanent chill. Every winter I would frequently get very sick and I suffered from painful chillblains on my toes caused from the cold. Shivering was a normal state of being.
Back then my dreams were not even big enough to include a tropical paradise but were only to get through each painful period. I never imagined that I would one day be living in always warm and sunny South Florida. This painting is of a local beach in the early morning of one of those warm sunny winter days. Thanks to the fact that the beach is a part of a Florida State Park it is preserved in it's natural state and to me it is indeed a perfect paradise.
