Kaypohing* the neighbours

(*kaypoh = busybody)

The thing about staying home with a bum knee is that you spend a lot of time looking out the window -- especially when the rabbit-ears antenna on the TV picks up only one English language station.

When you just can't stomach Yan Can Cook, the block of flats across the field is more interesting than TV. You can't actually look into anyone's windows -- they're too far away. But you can catch a glimpse of life when someone stands at the window. And because the flats are laid out linear so that the living room window is next to a row of two or three bedroom windows, it's like looking into a live-action doll's house.

You can tell who's home and who's not, whether someone's in the living room watching TV with the lights off from the flickering coming from the window, or a child in the bedroom studying from the glow of a desk lamp. The ground floor flat has a white dog that hops on to some furniture under his window to stick his head out and check things out. There's always karaoke drifting out on Saturday nights -- we can't hear from our flat, thank goodness, only when we're at the foot of the block when we walk the dog. There's Malays songs coming from a corner flat. And once, Old Rugged Cross karaoke-style from the white dog's flat. I didn't know hymns come in karaoke, but I shouldn't be surprised.

The apartment on the second floor directly across the field from us -- which makes it our opposite number -- has been under renovation. It was quite interesting to watch from our perspective. It must how the other neighbours saw our renovation. And it's sort of like tracing our own steps of three months ago.

About four or five weeks ago, we saw all the windows flung open and people standing at them, pouring over charts. Ah, the design stage. A few days later, we saw naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Ah, the electricity's in. Some days later, we noticed when we were walking the dog one night that the harsh light had given way to warmer lighting. Ah, the lights have been put in. That was pretty quick work. A few days later, we saw the windows thrown wide open, and newspapers sticking out where they had been pasted round the sides of the window frames. Ah, they're painting the walls now.

There has been little activity in the past week. Yesterday afternoon, someone was cleaning the windows and the window grilles. When we came home in the evening, light was pouring out from all the curtainless windows until past midnight. I think we're getting new neighbours pretty soon.