I believe in ghosts. Not the chain-rattling, shroud-clad nebulae that float in and out of Shakespeare’s plays and Dickens’ stories. I’m referring to people who have `moved on’ but still come back for a visit, who can talk and walk with you. Souls… Spirits… Whatever we want to call them, it’s impossible to have lived in a place like Hong Kong like we did for a dozen years and not believe in them. Just impossible.

I’m helping my husband, Michael Rothschild, re-arrange the window boxes in our bedroom upstairs. I do the lifting, not the nurturing; my thumbs are black. Two doors to the east scaffolders are erecting staging across our neighbour’s roof. Yet another loft conversion is in progress. The workmen are Polish.

I’m distracted not so much by the profuse use of the `k-word’ (use your imagination) but by the smell of their lunch – bigos, sauerkraut and beetroot. Sweet, sour, porky. The holy trinity of Polish aromas. And as if I’d just nibbled on a Proust madeleine, I am transported. Shop queues, shortages, empty shelves, panic buying, a depreciating currency. But big and generous hearts that still manage to dispense so much love even in a time of crisis… No, I’m no longer in Bow, East London. I am flying.

I’ve taken my cue from an erstwhile neighbour – Alfred Hitchcock was born just up the road in Leytonstone – and I’ve moved to the rear window. I’m in search of the colour purple. But instead of the lilac that coyly shows its first blush this time of year through the satin-white of the magnolia tree and the billowing chartreuse of the willow, I’m getting a Phoenician purple that would have turned Queen Elizabeth I, who banned the royal colour from her court, apoplectic.

It’s a hammock strung between two boats moored opposite us on the Hertford Union Canal here in Bow, East London. One is a long, dark and narrow canal boat called Jess while the other is a squatter, lighter and flightier cabin cruiser called Cumulus. Can boat owners look like their vessels as some people do their dogs? One’s a tall, rather hirsute young man, the other a shorter, fairer version of same; both have the good looks of the boy next door (should you live in Valencia). They appear to have just met and use the hammock as a horizontal meeting point; when they do, the canal water reflects a broad, plum-coloured smile. `How cute!’ my husband, Mike Rothschild, would have once gushed. `How romantic!’ I would have responded. Now it’s `Purple’s for kings’ from me. `And for queens’ from him. Oh-oh. All this is turning us a bit tetchy …

My husband, Mike Rothschild, thinks I’ve been staring out the window for too long now and suggests a bit of exercise. But our lovely lady, Vicky Park, is off-limits, I pout. ‘Let’s go to the Olympic Park,’ he suggests. So off on our bikes to the big green space just east of us we go, with Mike, my own personal optimist trying to keep my head above water as I struggle to submerge, wallowing in the black ink of despondency. I’ve been cooped up way too long watching the world sink from my window.

Time is weighing heavily as I sit at my window, sewing. Yes, buttons. Has it really come to this? Every once and a while I’ll lean forward to wave or nod to a friend or a passing acquaintance. The window washer, the Baptist preacher, the local councilwoman, the `kids’ next door (who are now adults) … We know everybody.