Not for the first time for the last few days we have been woken at about 4.00 am with the sound of distant drumming somewhat like a muted timpani drum in an orchestra. This usually but not always has a second beat immediately after the first as though the drumstick has bounced up and come back down again before the drummer has lifted it up for the second strike.
Initially I thought it was the bin men but as they normally turn up at about 6.00 am on a Thurdsday morning this was easily discounted with a 'hard listen' and was the wrong day, normally it is only one thump each for the waste and for the recycling bins, two if not everything has dropped out. This noise however goes on for hours at a time.
It also resembles pile driving but as far as we are aware there is no building work going on locally that would necessitate pile driving. The other thing that we thought was fracking or similar work taking place but again we have no knowledge of this taking place near us.
We are fairly close to the Blaye Power Station and wonder if it is something to do with that or something going on in the Gironde Estuary or across the other side of the river in the Medoc.
This sometimes coincides with stormy weather conditions such as we have just experienced but is not thunder as much too regular and last for a considerable time. We have heard it in the daytime as well but more usually in the very early morning.
Not tinnitus as my wife suffers from that and we both hear the same drumming noise so that can quite easily be discounted. We do have a lot of power cables around us from the feed from the power station, not very close though, just our own, and I have heard that this can sometimes be associated with these types of unidentified noises. There is however a substation about half a mile away.
This is different from the sound of underground machinery that I have heard in the past in the UK. Bit like the Morlocks in the H.G. Wells book the Time Machine. Does anyone really know what is going on right under our feet with all the old mines and cave systems forgotten or unexplored.
Any ideas on the source of this noise would be most welcome.
P.S. I assume not Vic practising with massive amplification on a sleepless night.