The view from my window

I have been thinking a lot about the "view from the window" as a way of looking at landscape. The view from my study in Stoke Newington is in many ways a completely unremarkable London landscape: an expanse of rooftops with jumbles of chimney pots and aerials; a mix of nineteenth-century and more recent buildings in various states of disrepair; and various gardens ranging from bare earth where all living things have been expurgated to rich assemblages of species from all over the world. A fine sycamore tree that once stood in my field of vision has recently been hacked down so I now have an uninterrupted view of heating vents from the back of restaurants in nearby Church Street. In my small garden below my window the now dry teasel heads bob in the breeze and I can imagine that the many frogs sitting in my pond have not yet decided whether it is time to sink down into the mud and sleep until spring.