In this week of finishing things off, The Fantastical Reality Radio Show in association with Mundane Appreciation has officially been completed. You can download all 5 shows as mp3s from our website at www.fantasticalreality.com

It has been an amazing project, a collaboration in which I’ve learned hugely. Kayla and Claudia of Mundane Appreciation are an awesome team and it’s been really brilliant to work alongside them, to produce something together.

For our Grand Finale we sent each other loot bags, which we used to develop sonic postcards. The Sonic Postcards feature has ended up being so much about our personal communication with each other, and has reflected where we have all geographically been at various times in the development of the show; I want to make a page all about the sonic postcards because they were the feature I enjoyed making the most and the one that I feel has underscored, for me, how I wish to continue composing with sounds in the future. But for now, I’ll just tell you about the loot bag and ther postcard I made from it, by way of celebrating in my own blog style, the completion of the EXPO commission.

Everything came in a freezer-bag, where Claudia had helpfully itemised the contents of the package.

I’m not sure this featured in the recording, but it was a very pleasing container for the rest of the joy.

The Hessian effect sticky-back-plastic, for instance, that I used to cover my gardening diary for water-proof-ness. Do you like the manner in which I concealed the join with amusing sellotape? I thought you might. This DIY exercise made some wonderful scrunchy, plasticky noises.

An interesting fact about Castle Cary that I circled using the bic biro from the package. The tourist brochure was one of the things in the package. I enjoyed learning that Castle Cary used to have a thriving textile industry and is also a fair trade town. The pen has been used for making lots of scribbly writing sounds in my postcard.

In the loot bag I also discovered this incredible leaflet for free tea gifts, which is like typeface porn for me. Look at that beautiful, sans-serif lettering.

The household gifts list contained inside sent me scurrying immediately to the kitchen cupboards, for items to record.

Oh for a ‘Univeral Grater’ or a ‘Miracle Tin Opener’ (does the tin have a miracle in it?)

There were also cabbage and onion seeds contained inside the package; I planted these and recorded the pleasing sounds of the seeds rattling around inside.

Then I watered the seeds, recording the lovely sounds of the watering-can filling. This reminded me of recording the same sound a couple of weeks ago for the sound parade. That was difficult to record because the very confident Blackbird in our neighbourhood kept singing, very loudly, right above me. I had to wait until he was all puffed out to record the sound without his input. I do love the blackbird, but he is all over the show!

This is the incredibly useful telephone pad that Claudia supplied in the loot bag; I now have no excuses for not keeping a record of calls. In the recording, I check my telephone messages.

I sent a very similar pad to Kayla; something that rubs off from working with Mundane Appreciation is an enhanced love of everyday stationery.

With the lovely paper that came in the lootbag, I painted and drew. The sound of a wet-paintbrush going over paper is truly lovely.

Since it was so very late and since I was so very tired, I decided to paint a simple and motivating message for myself, to get me through the night of editing.

This was just the boost I needed. At dawn, when I surfaced from the studio, completed show uploading, this is what the world was like.

I can’t quite believe it’s really done, but it is.