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What a rude awakening I got when the doorbell rang at the unholy hour of 7.30am. I got up, threw some clothes on, and hobbled downstairs to the accompaniment of an insistently ringing doorbell and a noisy lorry engine. I opened the door, and there stood two binmen (refuse collectors to the colonials). 'We've come to empty your bins, because we didn't get them yesterday', the elder of the two said. 'Oh!,' said I, half awake. 'They're upstairs in the back garden', I said. 'That's alright, sir, if you just go to your back door and point the way, we'll see to them'. They came up through our neighbour's garden and saw that there was another way in. 'Tell you what, sir, we'll just bring the lorry round the back.' Before I could say a word they were gone. A couple of minutes later I heard their lorry reversing up the road that leads to our driveway... the reversing alarm could not be missed. They got to the end of the lane and started the compactor. It made enough noise to waken the dead. A bin was dropped, a bin-bag burst, and assorted detritus spewed out across the road. 'We'll get that, sir', the elder binman shouted over the din of the compactor. A few shouts between them and a shovel appeared. The lorry's engine roared, the compactor whined, the shovel scraped and the binmen shouted. The neighbours came out - in their dressing gowns - to see what was happening. I apologised profusely - although I don't think anyone heard me over all the noise. Eventually peace was restored, and I slinked off back into the house to crawl under a carpet. My feelings of guilt at all the ruckus in the morning were short-lived, however. One of our neighbour's burglar alarms went off at about 12.30, and was still going strong three hours later - now that was ear-piercingly noisy.

Last year I restricted myself to Photoshopping the sky