Constant rumbling in the street... sewerage project in Larnaka

I was fairly blasé about the digging in our street yesterday. Even when the water went off, I wasn't too worried. We had some drinking water stored, and at 8.00this morning our mains water started flowing again.

There was a deep trench cut in our street, just like the ones we've seen in other roads in the neighbourhood in recent weeks:


- and this morning, about 6.45am, work started again. Various mechanical diggers have been up and down the road pretty much all day so far:


It's now mid-afternoon, 3.00pm, and they just paused. I'm not particularly hopeful since there have been several brief, wonderful pauses in the noise throughout the day. Blissful moments of silence before they start up again... although, this time, it seems as though they might indeed have stopped.

Richard asked one of the men how long it would be before the house drainage systems (currently septic tanks) can be linked in with these new storm and sewerage drains. About five years, he was told. Which, if previous experience is anything to go by, suggests that it could be twenty or twenty-five years at least. Unless, of course, the man was muddling his chronological units and meant 'five months'. In which case, I suppose it might be a couple of years.

At least I know what's going on, and hope it will be worth it in the end. Our cats have been very disturbed. Sophia is terrified of machines with arms, which must look like some kind of nightmare cat-eating monster to her. She has spent most of the day so far curled up by the stairs, which must somehow seem safer. Or perhaps offers a quick escape route upstairs if necessary:


Cleo is not quite as unhappy as Sophia, but when it's particularly loud she hides under the coffee table, a place that was always 'den' for the cats when they played games as kittens:


As for Tessie, she apparently thinks we're having an earthquake. She has been running around the house, crying. I think it helped when I picked her up so that she could actually see the diggers, and perhaps see that the noise was coming from something outside... but she is very disturbed:


Tim went back to the UK very early Tuesday morning. Good timing, since the work started about four hours after his flight departed.

Richard's timing is not so good. After working about 50-60 hours per week for many months, he finally decided that he would take a day off so that he could sleep all morning.

Today.

It's hard to think of a worse morning from the point of view of having a peaceful rest...