Radio Lento podcast

Tingling droplets still hanging in the air from the clearing mist, with not much daylight left, we finally managed to find a place to record. A lonely outcrop of oak trees beside the trackway, with a…

A bird calls out. Its cry carries far out over the water on this, a rare day of no wind. Not even a breeze or a whisper of leaves in the trees. Cows low from farmland on the floodplain beside the Tha…

Up in the hills about three miles from the mid-Wales village of Ceri, there's a stream. It runs down into the valley mostly parallel to a road. The landscape is largely uninhabited. It's a very peace…

Where the Thames path draws level with the iconic towers of Canary Wharf on the south side of the river at Rotherhithe, we climb up and over the tide wall, then descend steep slippery wooden steps do…

Bonus episode to mark 10,000 Radio Lento downloads. This is a shorter but no-loud-noise version of episode 29 'Trains planes and estuary birds'. Now in high definition sound, this an opportunity to h…

On the edge of the Bayford Pinetum in rural Hertfordshire, in view of the surrounding farmland, there's a young birch tree, growing in a secluded hollow. In early September the foliage here was hummi…

Night has fallen over the Forest of Dean. In the clearing where we left the microphones, the cool nocturnal air has begun to echo with the calls of tawny owls. Cars passing on the distant forest road…

Tucked behind buildings, encircled by busy roads in the borough of Hackney in London, there's Abney Park. It's one of the 'Magnificent Seven' cemeteries of London with marble-topped tombs half hidden…

While we went off to explore along the river banks of the Crouch, we left the microphones behind to record on the windowsill of a derelict shed just inside the deserted marina on the leeside of the p…

Night has come, and owls, to clear the slate. In this wonderful old wood the August air is still and filled with brightly chirping crickets. A propeller plane hums into the Eastern sky, its sound mix…

Not a place for unstable microphones. A mile along the winding footpath beside the River Crouch, with Althorne railway station and the ringing masts of Bridgemarsh Marina behind us, the landscape ahe…

It's just after midday in August and very hot. Families are out on the beach sunbathing, children play in the water. At the shoreline, cool waves wash and dissolve onto the shingle. With each recessi…

East Cliff overlooks the Channel and on a clear day like this, has a hazy view of France. On the way down to The Warren Beach, steep down a narrow winding path lined with stubby trees, we found a qui…

It's 8am and deep in the forest, steady banks of wind are pushing into the upper canopy. Above, the sky is pale blue, bright. It is late May, the day begins. This is the last section of a 12 hour all…

It's a cloudy late August afternoon on the banks of the Thames Estuary near Benfleet in Essex. Wild gusts of wind race in over the water. On this side, spots of rain float in the air but a mile away …

It's 1am. In a remote wood set amongst steeply sloping fields above the now infamous Todbrook reservoir in Whaley Bridge Derbyshire. Heavy drops of rain have started to fall. Each fleeting drop punct…

It is 3am. At the water's edge, the shadows are thick. A single star reflects in the ink black water, bobbed by passing ripples. The wide-open waterscape is alive with the sound of birds, swimming an…

In the middle of a sundrenched field in Gilston Park near Harlow in Essex, a crow calls far-off to the left, a bird scarer fires shots to the right. It's a warm afternoon and there's a brisk August w…