Every afternoon at 1pm, like clockwork , she would leave the living room and the bedroom curtain would close. Hmm I thought, she must be having a nap. She was about my age, late twenties. Sometimes I noticed she had two or three naps in a day. The bedroom curtain would go up and down.

It was 1986 and I would have just put the baby to bed and sat down with a cup of tea. Nothing really to do in my apartment. No daytime TV, no friends with babies to hang out with, no internet. I would look out the window. Our living room window was directly opposite and ten feet away from my neighbour’s South Granville, three story walk up.

Back in the day the authorities used to post the voters list on neighbourhood telephone poles. You could easily check and see if you were registered. I just happened to notice the name of the woman in the neighbouring apartment when I was checking to see that we were listed. They also listed occupations. When you think about it, seems kind of odd to have everyone’s names, addresses and occupations posted out in public for any old snoopy neighbour to read.

I had noticed the woman was listed as a therapist. Hmm what kind of therapist is at home all day and needs so many naps?

Did I mention there wasn’t much to do in an apartment with a newborn baby who was good as gold and slept all the time? I looked up Therapists in the yellow pages. There she was with a lovely 2 inch square advertisement on the bottom left hand side of the phonebook, with an appropriate accompanying logo.. Therapists, Sex…. Betty Jones, Let me solve all your problems, big or small and her phone number..

Good job in the garden today. It is getting tidier. If the rains could hold off one more day it would be great. Don’t worry that it looks so sparse. Everything will come back more beautiful and healthy from the pruning.

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I have no idea why I told you that story. Is it a story about our strangest neighbour or a way to to distract me from the fact we have caught four mice in

our bedroom today.