Odd Finder Behaviour - blank file list

When I open Finder I see the list of favourites on the LHS of the window with my user directory highlighted in blue at the top. In right hand pane, where I expect to see a list of directories, I just see a blank (white) pane. In order to "reveal" the list of files and directories I have to mouse click in the blank area and the list of files and directories appears.

If I click on one of the other favourites in the list on the LHS of the finder window the behaviour is normal - i.e. I can see the list of files and directories on the RHS, but when I click on my user directory in the LHS, once again the RHS is blank until I mouse click inside it.

Is this normal behaviour? Finder didn't behave like this with 10.6.

MBA 13

10.7.4

2 GHz Intel I7

8GB RAM

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

49