This, is bleak. Wave, weather worn, bleak. Windswept, land end bleak. What we've come for. An exposed area of land that noses out into the North Sea. Its tidal zones are made of bleached dry shells instead of sand. Of saline rotted timbered fences, some sunk waist deep, in time rounded, long shore drifted stones. And of shallow racing waves, blown sideways. This is Shellness, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent.
Dazzled at the water's edge by a low, February sun. Blasted by wind. Too much. So about turn and up the beach you go, through ankle deep shells, to look for shelter. A place found, beside the ramped seawall. A squat concrete block. A Second World War pillbox.
Back lent against, and out of the wind. And looking down the coastline at right angles to the rushing waves. At the desolate boundary between land and sea. And slowly, hearing it, as a corridor of emptiness. Nestled within this dim shadow, you can hear how this world is split. to the left, land. Its Swishing grasses. And to the right about a hundred yards, the North Sea. Its constant onshore flow. In time here becomes, not an empty place, but a place where each thing heard, each thing waited for, however slight, is somehow greater, more significant. A sparse few rugged birds. The warm, eventual hum, of a passing propeller plane. And an impression, that the tide might very gradually, be coming in.
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Our grateful thanks go to Ian, who we have connected with on Twitter. He met us off the train and drove us out over an extremely rough track to reach this remote spot. Without Ian, his local knowledge and willingness to sacrifice his car's suspension, we couldn't have made this recording.
65 Songs from the churchyard of St Mary’s Gilston
Waiting for skylarks at the Rye Harbour nature reserve
Taking forty winks at the seaside - Norman's Bay, East Sussex (sleep safe)
Mistle thrush sings amongst wind hushing conifers
A city at low tide (sleep safe)
Soundscenes of spring from the Derbyshire hills
A fallen tree on Galley Hill
Suffolk Wood (part 7) 2am - counting the chirps of a dark bush cricket (sleep safe)
Seaside brutalism - at the Port of Felixstowe
56 The whispering trees of Bayford Wood
Light rain beside the lane near Sandy
Sound-scenes of Norman's Pond as dusk turns to night - sleep safe
After the dawn chorus in the Forest of Dean
52 The balm of warm woodland in late summer
Garden birds under a silent sky
50 Singing beck below Black Hill (sleep safe)
Suffolk Wood (part 6) - 1am to 2am sleep safe with owls
Abney Park on Christmas Day in the morning
Quiet field by Young Wood
Derbyshire gales blow away the cobwebs
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