52 The balm of warm woodland in late summer

Full Episode description

Locked-down and nowhere to go. With pounded pavements all pounded, and back gardens beleaguered under pallid skies so dull sodden with wet, it’s hard to remember the feeling of travelling out of London to walk free through a forest in barmy summer heat. It feels important to think of it now though. More than ever. Really think of it. Reawaken it. The experience of a late summer walk through the Bayford Pinetum in Hertfordshire.

A day when the air was so warm to the skin that it disappeared, leaving one freer to move. And of all the other sensations. Of twisting along endless paths under trees. Of quietly and rhythmically stepping over dry leaves, between ruts in the ground, over fallen branches. Of an ankle caught by a bramble and a hand out to steady against a tree trunk. And an ear brushed by a leaf and a fleeing insect. And walking so unlike in a city, with head swung side to side to better smell the light perfumes. And to let the ears sponge up the atmosphere, the susurrating trees, the birdsong. The way birdsong echoes. The way their calls reveal the long spaces beyond what can be seen. The way muntjac deer bark like lost dogs. The way robins seem to sound sweeter the later in the year they sing. And remembering all of these experiences through a recording we made on that day.

This is a different spatial audio recording to the one that we used for episode 31. We made it as a fall-back, using a parallel set of mics positioned about 200 yards from the main pair. They picked up a completely different perspective of the Pinetum, with so many layers to hear. The trains gliding through the railway cutting sound wonderfully spatial reflected down from the tree canopy. There are more active birds compared from this angle too and a startlingly lovely buzzard.