Piles are being driven into the ground three doors along from me, where there was once a modest wooden house on a modest piece of land. The vibrations have put us on edge for several days now, but this morning seems worse. Our post-traumatic earthquake stress is reactivated. The ground is shaking. Plates are clattering on the shelf. The rose bush outside my window is trembling.

I walked down to see for myself. How does that repetitive, bone-jarring work affect the operator of the pile driver, I wondered. A passerby who lives on an adjacent street told me he can feel the vibrations as he works from home. Messages from our street’s on-line chat tells me others are disturbed by it as well, and that two-storeyed townhouses are being built on this small site. One neighbour thinks that ‘the new city council flood modelling requires deep piles for high foundations’. Hearsay is that this is the last day of the work. Here’s hoping.

I can hear the clang of the pile driver and then a delayed deep thud and vibration. It’s driving me to do distracting things such as vacuuming and mowing the lawn.