from my window

I am asked: where do you write? what do you see from your window? My office overlooks the garden but in summer trees obscure the longer view up to the main hamlet, which with its stone houses and slated roofs retains a medieval air. I love the huge, unusually spreading, pine tree in my garden, its cones cracking like rifles in this heavy heat, and the wild rose clothing the roof of an old agricultural building which now houses a multitude of junk. Unfortunately I cannot see the orchard which rises gently and expands to about an acre beyond the pine, but invisibility is good for an outdoor refuge.
Inside, I do not have a desk by the window, prefering to work facing a blank wall - so there is work-top round two sides of the room and a large table in the middle, providing different spaces for different projects, but it's true that every few minutes I swivel round for a glimpse of green and space for a new thought to creep in.
My armchair is by the window, although the thickness of the old walls makes the inner sill a comfortable place to sit and watch the small herd of white Charolais cattle grazing in the field a few metres away: the house shakes as they run about and I've often whipped out the modem cable thinking thunder was echoing down from the Monts d'Arrée...