I filled the tray from the tap on Thursday instead of walking down with the bucket. It was late and my knees were tired and the sea is ninety metres away, which is nothing, which is the whole point.

The print came out green-grey. Not a bad colour exactly, just a colour that isn't mine. I sat with it for a while and then I put it on the wall anyway, because it is honest about what it is.

The seawater does something I can't quite explain to people who ask. It shifts the blue, makes it settle in the paper differently, deeper and a little salt-bleached at the edges. With the tap water the blue just sits there like a photocopy.

So the bucket is by the door again and I am not too proud to say I learned something I already knew.

Anyone else here keeping a raw material that other people would call inconvenient? The walk, the wait, the thing that makes no sense until you see the sheet.