The rain came down, in the early hours of this morning, as I write. Lovely rain. Light to moderate. Temperature 7. Dew point 4. Wind EastNorthEast, gusting 8 knots. Enough to drift the ice cold raindrops. And ruffle the leading edge of the wide tarpaulin, that we've stretched over our back yard for shelter. And to make the rain sound better. More detailed. More spatial.
Nobody was there though. To witness. To feel the emptiness of the night, or hear how the rain drops fell. Nobody apart from a couple of distant birds. Night birds, that we've noticed on many nocturnal winter recordings do seem to sing. Dreamily, at this time of year. As the solstice approaches.
Now. With headphones on. With time set aside, we can be witnesses to how time passed in this place. Invisible witnesses, physically sitting, here, but mentally conscious of being there. Alive and aware of being present in the captured quiet of somewhere else. an empty and uncluttered place, where the winter rain fell.
* this quiet was captured at 4am on Saturday 9th December 2023, in north east London. We pointed the Lento box out over a long line of little back gardens. It's an area that hums like a city, but that also murmurs, especially at night, under the influence of the ever changing weather, and the wide open sky.
Suffolk Wood (part 9) - the hour before dawn with owls and nocturnal animals
82 Hill top oak in strong wind - a natural source of white noise (sleep safe)
Rising tide in the rock garden - the sea wall near Bradwell-on-Sea
A doze in the grass on Wallasea Island (High-def sound and sleep safe)
Essence of estuary
78 The birds that sing on the cusp of night - a leafy ravine in the Peak District (sleep safe after 16 mins)
77 The cuckoo of Swanscombe Marsh
Last pasture before the sea - Winchelsea to Rye
75 Yacht masts on the estuary at Wrabness (part 1)
74 Night shallowing in a Suffolk Wood - listen with headphones (sleep safe)
Slow rhythms of the Hoo Peninsula
The tunnel, the towpath and the window - under the M6 at Spaghetti Junction
Wading cows and a passing cuckoo - the lakes and woodland of Chatsworth
70 - Blue sky. Empty beach. Low tide.
Time beside a stream in the Welsh hills
Birdsong in rain from inside the derelict chapel at Abney Park nature reserve
May rain after daybreak
Listening to the longshore drift
65 Songs from the churchyard of St Mary’s Gilston
Waiting for skylarks at the Rye Harbour nature reserve
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