Look out of any window, any morning, any evening any day", Box of rain, Grateful Dead

I'm home quite a lot of the time these days. I now get to see a wholly new perspective on what goes on during the day on the street where I live and what a revelation it is. Now I know that this is not a ground breaking observation but you know how it is with say a hotel. You arrive at the hotel and magically it has been cleaned and prepared for your arrival. You leave and the hotel house elves descend on your room and all it becomes sparkly afterwards for the next visitor. I exclude French 1 star hotels from this metaphor on the basis that it seems they defy description in the first place and often there seems to be no difference between one occupancy and the next.

Whilst I was working I would disappear early with a friendly wave to the family, who full of sleep, would grunt at me, and return much, much later to a cleaned house, hot food on the table, scrubbed and attentive children, a chilled cocktail and my favourite brand of cigar. OK I admit that some of the last sentence is based on a 1950s American advert for a fridge that you could keep a small car in. But the point is that stuff happened but I wasn't involved. I mean now I help unpack the food when Mrs Prize comes home from the weekly stripping bare of the shelves of Tescos. I never knew we ate all this food. I am convinced that we are feeding another two families lodging in a priest's hole somewhere in the house. As for cleaning the house, well I've done some. And then Mrs Prize has to go around afterwards with the white gloves on inspecting my dusting prowess. I mean to say. I have a Cub Scouts badge for domestic something or other. Or was it for dismantling a Sten gun? No that was the army cadets.

What do I see through the round window today? A whole new world that's what. For example there are a couple of women that live together who pass by regularly. I've seen them walking and exercising their dogs but only from a height of 500 metres as I fly by in my powerful company car thinking of meetings, aims and objectives and excuses for not doing the things that I agreed to in those meetings. Now we pass the time of day although I harbour dangerous thoughts of violence towards their Yorkshire terrier with the red bow on the collar.

I have met my neighbour across the street. What is so amazing about that? Well he would leave around the same time as me and return late. Now I know he works at home occasionally and so we have spoken. In about 10 years time we will get around to asking each other's name - us Brits are so reserved. In fact I have spoken to many local people as I walk into town and back. They want to know why I insist in wearing a sandwich board saying "Job wanted - talk to me." on the front and "How is my job searching going? Ring 0800 000800 to comment." on the back.

I now know our Postwoman to talk to. "Why do you only bring job rejections?" I demand. "Don't you have a public duty to deliver work to me at home and bring me daily job offers from employers desperate for my skills?". We don't talk much, oddly enough. In the olden days, when Posties delivered your mail before 6am whistling a cheery ode from Beethoven, and there were ten deliveries a day I knew our Postie by name - it was Jamie. Jamie was great. He knew everybody and everything. A rabbit could not escape from its hutch without Jamie letting the neighbourhood know. If you were on holiday he would keep an eye on your house. He knew that Mrs Jones's bunions were playing her up something bad and that meant snow. He could recommend a painter, knew who was selling something you wanted and could talk about Patagonian politics. He was Neighbourhood Watch incarnate. We didn't need CCTVs. In fact we even raised a local petition to the grey, faceless bureaucrats at the local Post Office HQ to "Save our Jamie" when it was decided to redeploy Posties at a moments notice around the UK when there was dangerous Postie work to do. It didn't work, I think he ended up with a round in the Falklands Islands. Anyway we do seem to have some sort of postal consistency at the moment.

I've just watched (so you are really busy today Mr Prize and what of your job searching? Blimey, bang to rights, I'll do it next) the refuse collection happen along with the recycling and garden waste. These guys run along the street. I've not seen this much activity before. When I had a vacation job working on the dustcarts (as they then were, we had to empty ash cans) we were on fixed routes and hours. None of this efficiency lark for us. But the residents were very good. Those that took them used to neatly parcel up their pornographic magazines so the crew could read them at their leisure. I recall the look of horror one day in the cab when I used the built-in wash basin to clean my hands before eating my lunch. The truck was probably at least 5 years old and the basin had never been used before. That neatly labelled me in their eyes as one of those student types. These guys even have someone who comes and picks up the stray litter afterwards.

I've also started developing a rash of "Why on earth don't they..." according to the events going on in the street. For example, today someone's rubbish bag across the street had had a good going over during the night by a neighbourhood fox or one of the people living secretly in our house. The result - litter all over the verge. I saw them come out, look at it, get into their giant 4X4 and drive off. They delivered the kids to school, poor mites it's at least 500 metres to walk to school on level, tarmac'd pavements, returned, looked at the litter again and went inside. Meanwhile I'm in the middle of the road attempting to dodge the traffic trying to pick up an escaped cardboard box moving up the road like tumble weed in a Western town deserted except for the men in the black hats with evil intent on their minds. "Why on earth don't they pick it up..." I begin to say, then caught myself. I'll be writing to my local council next and using Strong Words. Oh just take me out and shoot me now.

There must be more to this new world out of my window. Not seen a policeman or policewomen yet but I'm sure there are legions out there. Postie has now been - no job offers. Better start on todays search.