The black sky - bruise black, threatening, with a hint of sulphur, that suggestive-of-snot green-yellow that certain sorts of coal gave off in the early stages of a new-lit fire - that sort of black sky was a bonus, added drama and a better colour balance to the scene I was trying to capture on paper, with watercolour paint, from the upstairs window of the mill.  

‘The Old Mill’ (that was what the owner called it, you could hear the capital letters in her voice, even on the phone) was not as well kempt as the website photographs had intimated, nor the food of the rustic, fresh farm quality that had been promised, but all that could be forgiven for the quality of the teaching.   

Ahem ... the qualities of the teacher, whose black-jeans-clad bum had, now I came to think of it, similar dramatic possibilities to the sky.

Take it Away (Tuesday) : The black sky...