I was sleeping peacefully this morning, I had managed to get to bed at a reasonable hour and was well on my way to a full 7 and a half hours of sleep before my alarm was set to go off for work. This is a rare occurrence.

Close to seven in the morning (my alarm goes off at 7:30), the entire house started shaking and rattling as if there was an earthquake. Dishes slammed against the cupboards, spices began creeping towards the edge of the shelf on the top of the stove, and tumbling to the burners below. Dust seeped in through the living room windows – and I was quite literally shaken awake.

While this would generally alarm most people, it has become a routine for me. You see I live on Wallinger Ave. and at around seven every morning, the construction starts up and the steamroller that had spent the night parked down my road trundles past my front window.

It might as well be in my living room.

Like every morning, I waited till my alarm really went off to crawl out of bed, at which point the steamroller was promptly shut down and parked and the construction workers moved on to something quieter. Couldn’t they have started with something quieter in the first place?

I know that construction has to be done; I also know that when this is done it’s going to be really great to not have to worry about tripping over breaks in the concrete sidewalk, and to have a smooth new road.

But have I mentioned this happens every Saturday at 7 a.m. too? Excavators are parked outside our house every Friday, only to rumble to life in the wee hours of the morning when all I dream about for my day off is a good sleep.

I have to say it’s pretty much impossible to sleep when your entire house is hopping around on the foundation.

All I ask, is for the construction workers to please leave the heavy machinery for a more reasonable hour – like 9? I’ll take just on the weekends if its too much of a nuisance.

I used to work as a housekeeper up at one of the condos on the ski hill. We had a policy that there was no vacuuming before about 10 a.m.

I can deal with the other side effects of the construction – my constantly dirty car, the wear and tear on said car from car by fouring over the bumps and rocks on the main road, the 10 minute waits to get my car in the driveway when I can see my house from where I’ve been stopped by flag people, the planning of new routes around gaping holes in the road, the random water outages, the thick layer of dust that covers everything in our house now – but only when I get a good nights sleep.

So construction workers, on behalf of the residents of Wallinger and Warren Ave. who like to sleep past 7 a.m. (especially on weekends), we will be more patient if the heavy machinery stays parked for a few more hours each day, and we do thank you for your hard work and the long hours you work.