Everybody needs good neighbours, especially me

For the last week or so, the bloke across the road has been using some kind of power saw on what looks from the pile on the nature strip like the entire original floorboards of a small suburb.

Over the weekend the bloke on one side of me, into whose horticultural adventures I have never inquired too closely, had clearly had delivered the second large load in three weeks of whatever fertiliser it is that he seasonally has large loads of delivered. The farmer's daughter in me could swear that it is pig manure, than which there are few more disgusting smells on the planet. Also, there's been a breeze down our way lately.

And yesterday what I thought must be an earthquake -- something that made the sofa suddenly acquire a built-in massage capacity, caused the ceiling to shift alarmingly and repeatedly, and set up a deafening rattle and hum in all the windows and all the plates and dishes on the shelves -- turned out to be the boys down over the back fence on the huge block -- about six or eight normal suburban blocks' worth -- that is currently being levelled and earth-rammed to provide foundations for a pile of medium-to-high-density housing to be built to the glory of the bank account of a notorious Adelaide developer, bashing the dirt down with their big yellow toys.

This house is 100 years old and, in the way of such houses, quaintly home-made from the original two rooms backwards. Like every house in Adelaide since the drought began, it has a number of cracks, and it contains evidence here and there of ancient termite damage. I expect it to collapse around my ears at any moment, and hope to survive to collect the insurance and build something with solar panels, rainwater tanks, a large state-of-the-art en suite bathroom, double glazing and a cat run.