I work from our front room. I finished school without ever touching a computer, but now I can’t write longhand. I think best in front of a keyboard and screen. At school – primary and secondary – I was constantly reprimanded for staring out the window. I don’t think I could help it, which didn’t stop teachers being exasperated. Now I have two windows to the street. I know who gets food delivered and when. Who is late for school pick up. I monitor the increasingly faltering gait of the woman on the corner. There are several new babies in the neighbourhood, and all I want is to run out and peer into their prams. Somehow I stop myself. A friend several doors down calls me Mrs Mangel. I assumed she meant Mrs Jessop. Google reveals that the same person, Vivean Gray, played the same stereotyped busybody curtain twitcher in different soapies, The Sullivans and Neighbours. The cap fits. I take my window watching duty seriously. One morning a naked man sauntered past. Imagine missing that. I find writing hard, as many of us do, and the window reminds me of where I would rather be. But in the foreground, always, the screen and the keyboard. I give them my reluctant attention, for a little while, then back to gazing.