black over Bill's mother's

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

black over Bill's mother's (not comparable)

1. (East Midlands, idiomatic) Describing rain-bearing dark clouds on the horizon.
   • 2000, Roy Holland, Just a Bit Touched: Tales of Perspective, page 51:

     “It looks a bit black over Bill's mother's,” I said. “I don't like the look of them bleeding clouds for one minute.”

   • 2008, Amy Cornes Torr, One Potato Two Potato: Woolley Jones II, page 136:

     “Oh, that's nice.” said Mrs Jones looking out of the window at the rain. “It has gone real black over Bill's mother's,” she said using one of the old sayings from around those parts.

   • 2015, Stu Stevens, chapter 1, in Lalla:

     Lalla puffed contentedly at his pipe. Then he removed it, spat, and looked at the sky. “It's getting black over Bill's mother's. We ought to be making a start.”

• Jennifer Meierhans (2016 November 6) “England's oddest phrases explained”, in BBC News‎, BBC