A mill is a building equipped with machinery for grinding grain into flour. Or, a factory fitted with machinery for a particular manufacturing process e.g. “a steel mill”.
The Mermaid In The Millpond by Lucy Strange and Pam Smy
Bess has left the London workhouse behind for a job at a rural cotton mill. But life at the mill is hard and cruel- a far cry from the fresh start Bess hoped for. The only way to survive is to escape, but the mill is like a prison with no way out.
Meanwhile, rumours are spreading about a vicious creature that lurks in the millpond. Bess is sure it’s all nonsense, until one night she sees something stir in the murky water.
But is it really a monster that lives in the depths of the pond? Or a creature trapped and alone, just like Bess, desperate to escape …Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890) Le Moulin de la Galette, 1887Mauritius of Vlaminck (1876-1958) France, The Windmill c. 1930sPaul-François Quinsac – Moulin de la Galette 1887. Moulin de la Galette is a windmill and associated businesses situated near the top of the district of Montmartre in ParisMarkey Robinson (1918-1999, Ireland) Windmill on a canal‘A Windmill’ by John Sell Cotman, watercolour, 1828Paul Emile Berthon (1872-1909), Profile Portrait of Princess Wilhelmina of HollandWhy The Dutch Are Different Into The Hidden Heart of the Netherlands by Ben CoatesYpe Wenning (Dutch, 1879-1959) Flour mill De Hoop in Oudewater, in wintertimePiet Mondriaan (Dutch painter) 1872-1944 Ramon Casas, Spanish painter (1866-1932)By the river in Louis Vivin Hiverby 1930Albertus Brondgeest (1786 – 1849) Snow-covered houses and a windmill along the ice, 1810A Sussex Windmill by Eric Slater, colour woodblock, 1930sThe Galette Mill by Louis Vivin 1926The Moon Singer by Clyde Robert Bulla, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (1969) high angle view of windmillDilapidated windmill, Jac van Looij, 1865 – 1930Franklin Booth – Solitude, 1925 windmill William Callow – Figures in a Field below a Continental Hilltop Village with Two Windmills 1835 Georges Leonec (1881-1940)Landscape With A Watermill from the 15th century, found in Le Tresor des Histoires, a universal history from the Creation to the time of Pope Clement VI.Peter Balazs (Hungarian, 1919-2003), The Old Mill 1965Mill Houses A. J. Casson (1898-1992)‘Old Linen Mill’ Knaresborough by Albert Walker (1900-84)ME AND MY FLYING MACHINE Marianna and Mercer Mayer 1968 back coverJohn Nash ‘Nailsworth Gloucestershire’, probably Longfords Mill (with boat house in front). They make Stroud scarlet for military uniforms and also the wool for tennis balls.E.H. Shepard (British,1879-1976) – There’s a dark dead water-wheel under the mill!Andrew Wyeth (American 1917-2009) The Flour Mill 1964Flour mill 1959 Andrew Wyeth, (1917-2009)
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
