Ugh. A very long day and a very late journey home after a tough, tough day at work. For reasons I won’t bore you with I spent a good while this evening in an engine plant room listening to large motors coughing and spluttering and failing to do what they were meant to do. This caused me a lot of stress and work this evening, which lead me to being very late home, but oddly, stood in that room as things fell systematically apart  all about me all I could do was think to myself how beautiful all the sounds of wheezing, clanking, failing machinery were when all sounding together.

Anyway everything got sorted eventually, and I headed off to Oxford station in time to catch the very last train home, which is in fact the very last train to leave Oxford at all until the early morning trains tomorrow. Once I had regained composure and let some of the adrenalin of a hard evening drain from my system it occurred to me that I was in fact the only person sat on the station. Nobody else could be seen anywhere, not even a station employee. Listening again here all of the ambient sounds of such a place leapt out at me. The station is separated just enough from the city for the noises coming from the centre to exist just as a very distant babble. Then there was all kind of buzzes, hums and drones to be heard on the platform. A loose light fitting above my head, a distant whirring from a building behind me, the purr and occasional rattle of a chilled vending machine back on my right. I have written before about how I love the sound of public places when they are at rest like this. I think I once wrote a 4AM post from an airport somewhere. If I was stressed before sitting down I felt better much quicker once I was distracted by these sounds. 

Earlier today I had tried to listen to a CD on the way into work, a Creative Sources quartet recording by David Chiesa, Emmanuel Petit, Jean-Luc Guionnet and Eric La Casa that involves a lot of environmental sounds combined with the sound of the musicians’ instruments. I had to stop trying to listen once I reached the station on the way in today because the noises around me were just too overpowering to be able to listen to what was quite quiet music.  It was ironic this evening that it was the stillness of the station that caught my ear. Normally I find myself trying hard to block railway sounds out as I listen. Tonight I was about to take my iPod from my pocket and try and combine the CD with the quieter surroundings about me when my train pulled into the station and any silence was shattered. Oh well.

So as you might have guessed I’m not posting anything particularly substantial today. Its been one of those days. Maybe tomorrow will be better.