From my roof I’ve a view south to the sea and north to the Taygetos mountains, but the immediate one is of the buildings all around, mostly blocks of balconied apartments like the one on which my own sits, bristling with south facing solar panels, all leaning deckchair like at 45 degree angles soaking up the sun. The buildings vary in size and height, some overlooking small areas of green where assortments of orange, olive and palm trees grow, others down onto dusty, vacant lots and all onto each other. 

At first it was just a view of the city, but after several days it began to develop a character, or rather I started to see it. Just as the sun goes down in the same place every evening I started to observe the pattern of the lives that inhabit the buildings, made easier than at home where, for much of the year, we come back from whatever we get up to all day and disappear, closing the door behind us. Here, warm and mostly dry for several months, life goes on outside, in parks, squares, on pavements and at home on balconies. Although less dramatic, my evening view reminds me of that great Hitchcock film, Rear Window, in which James Stewart, confined by a leg in plaster, observes the lights going on and off in the apartments of adjoining buildings, and pieces together a murder.

Immediately opposite in the early morning, just as the sun’s rising, I’m usually stirring at the same time as an elderly woman who must have a similar circadian rhythm to my own. As I come to with a coffee on my roof she follows a set routine, which starts when her blinds go up, after which she steps out onto her balcony, bed sheets over her shoulder, which she drapes over and pegs on the railings to air. She then disappears for a while, emerging after five minutes or so with her breakfast, which she eats and then feeds her cat. Then, and you could probably set a clock by it, she phones someone, always for around 20 seconds, a wakeup call perhaps. She then sweeps her balcony, disappears inside for another 5 minutes, emerges dressed, locks up and disappears until the same time tomorrow.

The evenings, as darkness falls and balcony lights go on, are more interesting. Like a randomly opening advent calendar, illuminated cameos of lives pop up all around. There’s the man in the small apartment who only ever appears around seven in the evening, taking in the washing that’s been drying all day in the sun, always 2 t-shirts, 4 socks and 2 pairs of underpants, except on Friday when he washes his trousers and a shirt. 

The apartment beside his is abandoned, now occupied only by pigeons, its one louvred balcony door always half open, with sun bleached and blistered paint. The only sign of life, although evidently now departed, is a rusting child’s bike with flat tyres. If this were Rear Window he could be the murderer of the family who everyone thought had just moved away.

Further away still is a large balcony where a family congregate in the evening, although each join the throng at different times. It’s usually a grandmother who appears first around 6.30. Presumably widowed, she’s always dressed in black and bobs around tidying up, lighting candles and putting stuff on a big table. Then, in the space of an hour or so there’s a steady trickle until eventually there are 9 of them, young and old. A baby and a toddler, both hugged and passed around, teenagers and grown-ups and, although they’re probably 100 metres or so distant, I hear them as they eat, chatter, argue and laugh together well into the night.

My favourite though is the furthest away and the highest, an apartment that sits like mine on a large roof, only one storey and shaped like a shoe box, only bigger. It has a wide L shaped balcony that’s more of a terrace spanning out on two sides, a shade giving, sloping veranda all round. It looks like a nice home, and I’ve grown to like the two women who live there, which I know is ridiculous.

I’m guessing they’re in their mid 30s and I see them every evening, now a familiar sight around 8.00. They both emerge, having showered after whatever it is that they do all day, one with long hair that she dries and brushes, head bent left and right to catch the evening breeze, while the other, whose is shorter, ambles slowly along a line of washing feeling it to see if it’s dry, which it surely is after a day in the sun. I think she just does it because she likes to. I can just make out that she’s smiling as she runs her hands along the line. 

Then they fold it together and take it inside, coming back out shortly after in their evening attire, which is always the same, both cool looking billowing dresses, which I’ve decided are linen, one a vibrant zingy yellow, the other a pretty powder blue. By now they’ve put on some music, indistinguishable from where I am but always soft, melodic and acoustic. They then disappear inside for a while, coming in and out again later, bringing plates, glasses and wine, and laying the food they’ve prepared on a table. 

I don’t know if they’re friends, sisters or lovers but they seem very happy sat there in the gradually fading light, talking, occasionally throwing their heads back in laughter, sometimes completely silent looking out across the city. I never know how the evening ends, but the music eventually stops and, because they never have a light on, they just fade away into the darkness and disappear.

This probably all sounds a bit pervy but it’s not. I can’t really see what they look like. They could be pretty or not and they may be talking nonsense, throwing their heads back as they laugh at the ease with which they earned their crust that day, mugging local pensioners, but I prefer what I see. I suppose they remind me of people I know.

Enough ramblings. Time for a swim. It’s only 31° today – hoorah!