Last night's partying went on until dawn. From time to time the sound of voices down in the street swam into my consciousness, briefly waking me. Then a short time ago a sound I've never heard here before started up, the noise of a hammer striking metal. Just one blow, then silence. A few seconds later another blow. Not sounding like the person was trying to put all their strength into it -- on the contrary, sounding as if they were trying to do it as carefully and quietly as they could. Which makes perfect sense given the hour: 7 a.m., Saturday morning. On the other hand, if they were really worried about waking up the neighborhood, they'd hold off on whatever it was they were doing until midday.
That continued for a while. I thought about getting up, opening a window, trying to see where what was going on, then yelling as loudly and harshly as I could to please stop with the FUCKING NOISE! But the perp. probably didn't speak English, and getting out of bed to yell like that would wake me completely up. So I remained horizontal, comfortable, nice and warm, waiting. After a while it stopped.
Silence. Much better. Back to sleep.
Shortly before 8 o'clock, another noise started up, louder. Like the sound rocks would make falling into a 55-gallon barrel. The sound, than a pause, the sound again, another pause. Until I got up once more, pulled the shades, opened the window.
Down in the street: a dumptruck with a bed nearly double the length of your typical dump truck. Filled with coal. Two men with large metal wheelbarrels bringing the coal into a building. One would position his wheelbarrow at the rear of the truck, open a hatch, a load of coal would pour into the wheelbarrow. Close the hatch, go dump the load in a nearby building's basement while the second worker filled up his wheelbarrow. The street had been blocked off to permit this work, they'd clearly come at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning not only because it's a time of little traffic here but also because it's probably the most effective time to wake up the largest number of neighborhood residents.
They actually emptied the entire load of coal, one wheelbarrow at a time. The work tailed off after 8:30. By 8:45 they were gone.