Location: Village Green, Woodcote, Oxfordshire, UK
Date: 26th May 2020
Time: 08:58 – 09:13
Weather: Sunny, light cloud with a gentle breeze
Temperature: 18oC
Average Sound Level: 43.2dBSPL (LAeq)
With only a distant peacock call for sonic novelty, the familiar soundscape and sun on my back allows me to slouch in to the park bench with considerable ease. Prompted by recollection of an earlier email, my mind meanders across the village green, resting itself on people, so as to imagine their experience of being present here today. The gentleman sitting on the park bench adjacent to me, drinking from a can, then hunched over, gazing in to his lap. The lady wandering past me on a brisk circuit of the field, politely slowing to say hello. The dad with daughter and dog in tow. Looking for an allegory that can communicate these thoughts and imaginings, my mind conjures documentary footage of bulging amphibian eyes, then nostrils, tongues and ear drums emerging and sinking back into some primeval soup. Scattered points of reception emerging to wonder at the whole from different angles, as a person might check their hair in a mirror, only to disintegrate as food for future insights.