Thanks for your input from the other side. I also have had experience of living next door to a building site in the last apartment we lived in and I agree it was a nuisance being woken in the morning at the weekends and sometimes with work going on until 12 at night. So I think we were conscious of the problems we would face with the neighbours.
However, and I didn't mention this in the original post, I don't think this woman will be at all approachable as during our conversation she flicked a cigarette over not at me but in an attempt to get it to land at the roof, which I felt was a very agressive gesture. She missed but the intention was clear that it was just to stir some more. I did try to sympathise with her before this point, but I wasn't even allowed to finish a sentence.
I'm not trying to say that we did everything right, clearly we didn't -including the times we ran over, but I think the fact that the neighbours on the other side don't bear us any ill will is indicitive of the fact that we did try our best to keep things to a minimum. I also called during the build but the door wasn't answered.
That is actually the first time I have seen the woman since we moved in, in April and hopefully it will be as long again. She may have more problems than I know about as my hubby also mentioned that when a guy was collecting rubbish outside, she was giving him the finger.