A binaural recording (best enjoyed via headphones) from this morning’s dog walk. The first half is me waffling on and the remainder is ambient noise as I walk home. Thanks for listening.
Category: audio
AudioMo Day 7 – Pushing Heavy Wheelbarrows Up Steep Hills
Some thoughts following @katesparkle‘s AudioMo of yesterday
Kate’s original AudioMo can be found here:
AudioMo 2022 Day 2
For Day 2 of AudioMo I used the Sennheiser Ambeo Smart Headset which records the audio binaurally. So when listening back it’s best to use headphones and you’ll hear the left and right sides of the audio as they were recorded.
Listen to the end for the peregrine falcon. The pictures of the fox and peregrine that I took are below.
About 25 minutes of audio and me burbling on, so if you do make it all the way to the end, thanks for listening.
AudioMo 2022
I taking part in AudioMo again this year – an audio recording of any length each day through the month of June, posted to Twitter with the hashtag #AudioMo.
I’m going to pin this post to the top of the blog for the duration, and update it with a link to each new post (when I remember to do so), so you can find them all on this post during the month.
Robin Song
When I got up this morning at about 05.30 there was a robin singing in the garden, I could hear another in the far distance singing in response. I nipped back indoors and got my recorder, clipped the mic to a twig in a nearby tree, put the recorder on top of a waterbutt and pressed record. Here’s the results (best listened to with headphones):
Zoom F2 Field Recorder Audio Ramble
A short morning dog walk in the rain with the Zoom F2 Field Recorder for its first test. No prizes for listening to the end.
Thanks for listening!
Buying Go Go Juice TWTW # 147
I’ve mostly been at my desk working on client projects this week. Things are moving in the right direction and I have another busy week, including some Friday evening and Saturday morning workshops that I’m going to be involved in, coming up. It’s good to have paid work coming through, and the experience of getting back into that routine again quite interesting.
I had to buy some petrol this week. I haven’t needed to before now because I didn’t actually need any and saw no benefit to adding to the stupidity of what has been panic buying of a resource that isn’t actually in a shortage. I had no problems, just drove straight up to a pump, filled up and paid and drove away again. I’m not sure whether I was lucky (there were queues at the same petrol station earlier in the week) or whether things have just calmed down again. I hope it’s the latter.
Reading
I’ve mostly been reading James Holland’s Brothers in Arms – One legendary tank regiments bloody war from D-Day to VE-Day this week. I’ve stayed up late several nights reading this without feeling fatigued (which has taught me something about when you’re engaged with a book, you don’t feel tired), and I have to say it is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read in awhile. It is also probably one of the most gut wrenching when you consider the casualties. I think I am right in saying that no one in the regiment who landed on the beach in Normandy survive without being wounded, and there were many, many who were sadly killed. War is horrible and I’ve read a lot of military history books but this really brought it home just how many were killed and wounded and how many ‘replacements’ came directly from training to the front line to replace their comrades and became casualties themselves. Of those who landed in Normandy the number of men was replaced at the rate of 150%, and although some were wounded and returned there were very few who managed to do through the whole period without injury of some kind.
Sadly the last surviving member of the regiment from that time died this week.
I’d recommend reading this if you have the time.
Later this coming week the final John le Carré novel Silverview will be published. There are a couple of interesting articles about other writers favourite le Carré novel (mine are probably The Little Drummer Girl and The Constant Gardener but as I’m rereading those that I first read many years ago, I expect some more might get added to that list) and also about the authors change of nationality to Irish so that he could remain and die an EU citizen. I’d also recommend listening to the Radio 4 programme that’s mentioned in one of the articles.
I have my copy on pre-order and I’m looking forward to, although with some sadness to reading this final novel.
Allotment
I recorded some audio from the allotment this week.
Links
I use Instagram but rarely Facebook or WhatsApp but for one reason or another there’s been a lot of coverage about them this week, either because they’ve managed to shoot themselves in one foot or another, but this comparison is an interesting read. I find my use of Instagram a little unsettling now given the background and information that has come out.
Watching
I’ve not really been watching much this week, a few episodes of the Michael Gambon incarnation of Maigret which are excellent, and some more episodes of the Apple TV+ adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels. I’ve been spending much more time reading my book (see above).
The coming week looks like being a rinse and repeat version of this one. I hope whatever you’re up to your able to stay safe. Take care.
Grindstone Cowboy TWTW # 145
As I sit down to write this post I see that my notebook is a little empty of things to talk about this week. I curate a list during the week, of things I should include in these posts. When something happens I’ll add it to the list. This week that list is blank. Not because nothing has happened, on the contrary I’ve had quite a busy week, but because a symptom of that busyness is not having the time to add things to it.
Work
This is what has kept me busiest this week, I’ve been making progress with client work. Doing quite a bit of research and creating models and calculations to look at a variety of different scenarios for that client to help them with their planning for reaching net-zero.
Out of the blue I also had a separate approach from another client for some further work. We’re talking this coming week to discuss but it’s an another old project coming back around again, partly due to the pandemic pushing it into the long grass for a while.
Reading
I finished London Match by Len Deighton and am still visiting Derek Jarman’s Dungeness garden via the pages of his diary each day. I don’t read much of this each time but I do enjoy reading other peoples journals and diaries. I have several in my ‘to be read’ pile and it’s interesting that each one is a slightly different style or approach to what they recorded, or felt was worth recording about themselves and what happened to them.
I also dipped into The Collected Adventures of David Cranmer’s “Drifter Detective”, there’s a review here, and I’m looking forward to reading some more in the coming days.
Allotment
A lot of weeding this week. I’ve cleared enough space for over-wintering things and most of those have now arrived from various seed suppliers. It’s still a little early to be planting and sowing, but time passes so quickly that it won’t be long. I’ve harvested about half of my apples. The variety is a hybrid and the earlier you harvest e.g. in September the closer they are to a cooking apple, the longer they stay on the tree e.g. October / November the closer they are to an eating apple. So I’ve left about half, mostly the smaller ones on the tree in the hope that it doesn’t get too windy or cold and that I can have some eating apples in another month or so.
I visited my Mum this week for her birthday. Covid restrictions mean that there are still some limitations, and we had about an hour together, but with her Alzheimer’s the way it is that is probably about the right length of time. She was in good spirits, although the fact it was her birthday had passed her by until I showed up. We both have milestone birthdays next year and she was talking about having a party. Who knows if that will be possible but it was a nice thought. Not sure I’m up for a milestone birthday or a party to be honest but who knows.
I recorded some audio on one of my dog walks this week, it’s about half an hour of me rambling on about all sorts of things. I posted it earlier in the week, but if you’d like to listen and haven’t already I’ll embed it again here:
There are no links this week – mostly because all of the things I’ve been looking at have been work related and probably not all that interesting unless you’re into carbon reduction. The week ahead is looking similar to the one just gone, with a catch-up visit to the vet but otherwise it’s going to be head down.
Whatever you’re up to take care and stay safe!
A Morning Audio Ramble
Some audio thoughts from our dog walk this morning.
This is a binaural recording – if you listen to this with headphones you should hear what I was hearing i.e. different things in your / my left and right ears.
It’s quite long and there are no prizes for listening to the end, but if you do listen, thank you!
Electronic Scrapbook 