Clash of the Builders

I thought it was bad enough when the supermarket next door decided that the current housing market would be greatly boosted by the addition of a two-storey block of flats above the store.

I spent our erratic and single digit summer days trying to distract my daughter from the sight of scantily clad, heavy-set Eastern European scaffolders working just metres from our backyard. I'm not a prude but many of them did insist on working in skimpy, tight trunks, leaving little to the imagination as they lent over the scaffold to adjust their nuts and bolts. The incessant drilling continues to the point where you can't have a conversation if you're standing in the kitchen during the day and I've toyed with the idea of taking up sign language as I can't see them finishing it for at least a year or two.

And now, next door's extension is underway. To be fair the builders did pop round this morning to introduce themselves. However, I wasn't expecting them to start demolishing walls quite so soon. Don't they usually scope the place for a good week or so, drain the house of tea bags and dunkers and then go off on holiday before they even contemplate moving the tools in? Apparently not in this case, which bodes well if we ever need any building work done I guess.

There is now a drilling competition going on between them on one side and the Co-op collective on the other. I, meanwhile, must sit in the middle of this building site, consoled only by painkillers and ear plugs.