People are most idiosyncratically individualistic in their values and orientations. A fact of life that is expressed about us constantly in every facet of our lives as we come in contact with people around us. A case in point as close to us in particular as our closest next-door neighbours. Take, for example the family on our right, a retired couple with their two university-age children. One is studying theatre arts the other kinesiology.The mother is a smiling, outwardly friendly person, while her husband and their children are emotionally cloistered, her husband in very particular socially withdrawn a person who assiduously avoids any contact however remote, with anyone outside his immediate household.

And then, there's the family to our immediate left, who have never integrated themselves socially in the neighbourhood, but are friendly and good-natured people. They've been neighbours for 17 years.Those to the right do the least they possibly can to ensure their property, house exterior and lawns are kept tidy and in good shape, though they certainly have the 'man-power' to do so. Seldom do we ever see any of that family outside their home other than pulling out of or into their driveway. We've lived beside them for 23 years. The years have produced a steady disintegration resulting in a slovenly atmosphere permeating the property, unattended and reduced to a miserable appearance. This does not result from a lack of funding, but an obvious disinclination to exert themselves physically and an avoidance of confronting the necessity to address adequate maintenance.

As opposed to those on the left who are constantly contracting professionals in house maintenance to conduct upgrades of one kind or another within and without the house. At the present time, there's a landscaping company with all kinds of modern heavy-duty landscaping equipment coming in to noisily deconstruct work that had been done by previous landscapers, including ripping up an incredible amount of brick and stonework in patios and walkways to eventually replace it all with newer products that have appealed to the home-owners.

Both of the children in that household have achieved their education and one works as a pediatric nurse at a nearby hospital, the other has performed a variety of jobs all pointing him toward eventual work with the RCMP. They're unself-consciously open, not gregarious by nature, but obviously comfortable in the sphere of human social interaction, reflecting their parents' example.

As for us, we are caught in the middle; retired, giving attention when weather permits, to growing our garden and taking huge pleasure in the results. We like to amble about in the garden in the morning after breakfast, discovering new and sometimes unexpected blooms, appreciative of the burgeoning growth and variety, texture, colours and freshness of it all. Except lately everything has been covered with a fine stonedust that mutes the colours and creates an overall drabness, draining pleasure and producing instead an aghast sadness.

When that kind of work is taking place as is being done next door, transforming the grounds so radically with the use of heavy equipment and men labouring in the heat of the day to fulfill a contract as a living wage, the inevitable result is resounding clashes and a littering of the atmosphere with insistently brash soundwaves, making relaxing out on the deck less attractive in the afternoon, and our morning garden roundabouts better avoided. It's just one of those things.

The supervisor of the men performing the work happened to see my husband scraping the detritus of piled gravel, dirt and bricks off the roadway in front our driveway and sweeping the detritus that driving over it all plasters onto the driveway, so he approached my husband and assured him that this was unneeded labour on his part. His company will always meticulously clean up after themselves, leaving any properties impacted by work they undertake as tidy as they were before they entered the picture.

My husband thanked him. We can't expect people earning a difficult living to understand fully how what they do legitimately in response to work orders that keep a company in operation, to extend Herculean efforts to ensure that nothing disturbs neighbours. Given the nature of the work it is simply not feasible. So yesterday we hoped for rain to wash away all the distressing stone-dust produced by mechanically sawing the bricks and stones that has settled on our gardens, but in the interim my husband went about watering it all, in hopes that when next I returned to the gardens my distress would be alleviated.

It is, in any event, a brief interim in the summer months to create a disturbance in leisure hours that will soon enough be done with as they complete the work and move on elsewhere.