(Joseph)
A day off…
A chance to explore and be tourists for a day – with the mics ever present, recording as we go… First stop, the Horse Fair at Cunningsburgh, on the same site as the recent agricultural fair. A little difficult in terms of recording, with the main road so close by – it’s amazing how the background noise of the fair covered this up the last time we were here.
Next stop Jarlshof… The site of several important historical finds all layered together on one site, stretching back some 4,000 years. The site, described as “a pile of stones” by the man in the gift shop, as he tried to persuade me to take an audio guide (which I generally detest), was in fact a feast for the imagination; as we wandered around exposed underground, circular buildings and later rectangular Norse settlements, trying to comprehend what life would have been like in the various historical eras represented here.
We left the site and took off into a field and up the coast to look at the landscape and came across a rather fearsome bull who kept a watchful eye on us the whole time. Grabbed a few bird recordings on the way back.
And then the treat of the day, we saw a group of birds (not sure if they were ducks or geese???) who were huddled together in a field next to the Sumburgh Hotel and we followed them around in a comical dance, with me recording and Kay filming. Surprised they didn’t just fly off. They didn’t really seem to mind us, but didn’t like us getting too close hence the ‘dance’ around the field.
The day ended with more landscape porn near the Spiggie Hotel on the way back to Lerwick to see a film at the Screenplay film festival.
Not posting any sounds today as almost everything I recorded has the sound of (unwanted) human intervention or overwhelming sea and wind!!! C’est la vie.
