176 Early morning below Nothe Fort

Radio Lento podcast

The sound-scene is of a smooth, sunrise sea, heard from a tree, growing up out of a bundle of boulders, close to the water's edge. It's early April, and just after daybreak. The Lento kit is in the tree, capturing the wide spatial quiet of this place with nobody about, right beside Nothe Fort in Weymouth on the south coast of England. Ahead, looking south, the sea. West is Portland. East is Weymouth, then Durdle Door, near to Lulworth Cove.

Here, in this little settled spot, and from far left of scene, the sea seems to be breathing, softly, as it sweeps the shingle at the foot of the fort's huge parapet wall. Perhaps it's still asleep. Has it not heard the blackbird? Has it not heard the wren? Or the garden warbler? Maybe. In a dream.

From right of scene, where the swell's near and breaking over the boulders, the sea's very much awake. Awake, and moving. Rising, falling. Gently washing the sunlit sharp rocks, in slow, circling motions.

High above, in wide circles, are the seagulls. Calling brightly to each other in the first light air. And some stray crows. And ducks. And something else. Something deep. Something that hums. It is, almost musical. Not animal. Or geomorphological. Too powerful, too omnipotent, for that. It's the kind of sound that isn't in the air. But is the air.

A ship. And its low humming engine. Moving. Very gradually. Across the horizon. Like a far drifting cloud.