Red sky at night

From our doorstep on the third floor of our Battersea estate you can see the delightful Crown pub to the left where local chieftains hang about outside spitting and doing drug deals.

To the front is usual estate action. Kids running about on the corrugated iron topped garages, rubbish building up at the base of a streetlamp, CCTV cameras pointed at the parked cars below us.

To the right, during the winter when the trees are bare, you can make out the tip of the House of Parliament and the Millenium Wheel. Did I mentioned I have an 0207 dialling code? Anyway. It's not a view that would lead you to gasp for breath. Neither good nor bad nor remarkable in any way.

But cast your eyes to the heavens and it's a different story. Close enough to see the flight path above but far enough from the sounds the planes make for it to be a nuisance the sky is often dissected by jet trails and spiralled cloud patterns. When the sun goes down it's often quite beautiful.