The good people at the Nelligen Bridge Replacement Project just dropped a note into my letterbox, informing me that they will be pouring concrete on Saturday 14 August, until 6 pm. To minimise impacts to residents, they "... will use squawkers rather than beepers on reversing vehicles."
By the time all that beeping-converted-to-squawking filters down to us, it will have been drowned out by the squawking of ducks, the humming of bees, and the tweeting of birds here at tucked-away "Riverbend".
Things could be a whole lot worse. Roy, an old mate from my Bougainville days emailed me from Kuala Lumpur, "Here are four buildings being constructed within 100-150m from my apartment, and each with its own concrete pump that always seems to operate on different days. At your distance the muffled noise of the pile driver is nothing like the continuous bangs we hear of the concrete pumps forcing concrete from the truck mixer up dozens of floors – due to the weight of concrete the HP required is enormous – once they start to pour a floor they cannot stop until the pour is complete."
Roy, it's been over two years since you visited "Riverbend"! Whenever you need a respite from downtown K.L., come to "Riverbend". The guest cottage - which you helped to rewire; click here - is waiting for you!
P.S. Within hours of the first mail drop, another leaflet appeared in our mailbox:
P.P.S. My old mate Roy is also an (albeit now retired) electrical engineer, and you know what they say about engineers, don't you? They don't just talk to you but they vibrate the air molecules using they vocal chords so that it disturbs your eardrums, and they don't just show you something but they direct the reflected electromagnetic radiations from the surface of the object towards your eyes. So when he detected my interest in his view of the world from the balcony of his apartment in Kuala Lumpur, he sent me these very detailed explanations:
Could you imagine a world without electrical engineers? Thanks, Roy! You're lucky to live in K.L. as it is still cold down here. I've just put on a second shirt to create a dielectric medium between the two shirts so that the heat generated by my body will not go out, and I stay warm 😀
