I’ve just run down five floors, then up again. One of the neighbouring houses has a rather loud suction pump that they’re quick to switch on whenever city water starts coming in. As I can’t hear the water’s arrival myself from up here, I’ve come to rely on its helpfully noisy grind to know when I need to run down and also turn ours on.
Other than that, the alley is quiet tonight; it isn’t always. Some construction is going on further down the lane but as it’s too narrow there to drop off materials, trucks arrive long after dark to dump loads of gravel and sand in the open(ish) area to the right of my building’s front door. Then there’s the rhythmic rattle of shovels as wheelbarrows are loaded, then wheeled, off out of earshot.
It reminds me of the last place I lived; there was a small dairy farm behind the house and huge, hay-filled trucks would pull in occasionally, always very late at night (there are restrictions on the timings various vehicle sizes can move in the valley). It was startling at first, but became normal, to open my curtains—I lived on the ground floor, then, on a slight uphill incline—to find myself nearly eye level with the cab of a truck, its own curtains drawn, its occupants hunkered down for the night.
Sometimes, early, I’d hear the dairy farmer’s wife call that dal-bhat was ready, and after eating the workers would join the farmer and his two sons in beginning the long unloading process. Or else they emptied the load at night, before settling down, and though it took a while I eventually grew used to the sound, sometimes didn’t even hear them come in at night, and would awake to a towering heap of rectangular straw bales in the empty lot opposite my front door.
**
Across from my front door, now, is a home with a very spacious garden. Two large avocado trees used to preside over the space, but one cracked sometime last year—maybe in a storm—and was eventually cut down. The other has been severely pruned back. The space around the trees used to be slightly wild and weed-filled, a large taro plant or two visible through the foliage, occasionally harvested; sometimes a hole is dug and filled with vegetable cuttings and other biodegradable matter, before being filled up again.
Since the trees have been cut back, the various people that live in the house have been working, slowly, on the garden. On the right side, they’ve now marked out neatly hoed plots. Four are about evenly sized: five by six feet or so, then a thin strip along one wall, and a larger section along the wall at right angles to that one. A week or so ago the beds were topped with manure of some sort.
I’m waiting to see what comes up.