Standing beside an estate agent, I peer out a bedroom window and into a rainy Saturday.

As a consummate dreamer, I'm a master of staring through windows. From home the view is stunning; the roofs of the houses opposite may blot out the shallow valley—which is filled by nothing more scintillating than red brick suburbia—but the tops of the downs are mine. These hills are papered with a patchwork of woods and fields, and—rather incongruously—a white lion carved out the chalk. They start the day in silhouette but finish by collecting the sun's final rays. Inbetween times they come and go, disappearing into and out of the clouds, some days not appearing at all. Being windward of the prevailing wind, they collect rain and snow that misses us - orthographic precipitation blown along the valley. Only on the clearest day, when they seem close enough to touch, do they dress in green; at other times the miles of air between us filter everything turquoise, or grey. But my! are they strong: propping up the vast uncharted oceans of the sky that ascend from my eye-line to the ceiling. I've counted every smile, laugh, and tear of those hills, but still a glance right can surprise me. No camera can manufacture a snapshot of them, let alone capture their variations.

So I look out onto a sodden garden with dismay. When all I have to stare at is lawn, will I become as a myopic as everyone else, only concerned with my own little world? Or will the loss of my muse motivate me to brave the underworld and rescue them, finally achieving something with my life? And inbetween whiles, who will look after them? Can anyone so assiduously attend the hills of my birth?

*

And so we trudge from the bedroom to the lounge.

A last minute bidding war, may have pleased the purse and extended purchasing options, but I'm beginning to realise how much I've been short changed.

'The ceilings are quite high.', says the estate agent, scrambling up the scree of my melancholia. So I reach up and press the palm of my hand flat against it. Later at home I try the same trick: even on tip toes I cannot get my whole hand flat. It looks like my horizons are going to closing in on all fronts, then.