Seems to have been the water company digging up the pavement further up the lane (probably to fit water meters). Gone now. It's peaceful. Of course, it's waiting for 7pm when I go sit on the patio to open a cold one. Actually, generally it is quite peaceful here, on the semi-rural edges of the great metropolis. Mind you, this is the first house we've lived in that doesn't have a train track running by it and a police helicopter permanently hovering overhead.
The bane of my auditory existence is the reversing vehicle noise. Even the incessant beep beep beep or, even worse, that weird gasping noise, like someone is repeatedly punching an asthmatic in the gut. They echo up and down the valley in a bloody symphony of reversing. It's not just the noise, it's the concept. All that sodding annoyance does is give drivers an excuse not to look behind them (not to mention assume that no one ever would be deaf, of course).