I totally agree with you, Adam, and so I've taken the liberty to crop differently and upload again. In doing so I parted with the 4:3 aspect ratio which I usually try to adhere to. The sky is not blown, but admittedly almost is. Yes, it was a rainy day. Thanks for your comment.
Gideon
This has potential but there's a lot of dead forground space. Seeing as you were at max zoom what I'd have done would have been to shoot portrait and use the (interesting and unsual) tree with either 1/3 ground and 2/3 sky or the other way round. Is the sky blown or just misty? I can't tell. I think this is a situation where you needed a bigger zoom! Adam