Adaptation

For the first couple of weeks that the storm of building activity raged outside my bedroom window, I was usually getting home so late (and/or drunk) that I was somehow managing to sleep through it.

Then, for a while, I got psyched up about trying to do something about it. I complained and complained and complained. Two or three times, I was seemingly successful: the site was closed down - but it took 2 or 3 hours after my phone calls to achieve this happy state, and by then the dawn recommencement of operations would be only a few hours away.

I took to sleeping on a sofa in the living room. It's pretty comfortable, and I quite often inadvertently crash out on it anyway. However, sleeping on it for several nights in succession is not good for my back, which has been playing me up a bit of late. And the living room, while it is considerably better insulated from the building site noise than either of my two bedrooms (the sealed balcony at the front effectively provides a sort of double-glazing), is still not that quiet - especially when relays of tipper-trucks are rumbling past throughout the night. Moreover, I have no decent curtains in there, so I find it almost impossible to sleep in beyond daybreak.

However, I had rather been overlooking the fact that I have a couple of sofa-beds in the living-room. I'm now using one of those, and getting a much better night's sleep. Also, I have draped my spare duvets over my drying rails on the balcony, and that has proved to be remarkably successful in damping out more of the building noise outside (not so good at cutting out the dawn light streaming into the room, but some help at least).

It's been a huge improvement in my quality of life this week. (I'm a trifle annoyed with myself that it took me so long to work out this "solution".)

Now, though, I'm starting to get worried that I may never be able to move back into my bedroom: there's always quite a lot of outside noise in there, especially from the traffic on the nearby 2nd Ringroad (to say nothing of the early morning buses with their very loud recorded passenger announcements on the street outside, and the traditional folk songs that blare out from ghetto-blasters to accompany the old ladies doing their t'ai chi exercises in the park below me). When the building site isn't too busy, the QUIET in my new sleeping quarters is really quite intense. I mustn't allow myself to get too used to it.