(look carefully behind the trees)

Besideherself asked me the other day what it was like to live amidst the wind turbines, so I thought I'd answer her in a post and kill several birds with one turbine post... turbines do actually kill birds so maybe I shouldn't have crossed that out.

I'm not going to mention the visual impact, as with a turbine either side of us and both less than 300m from the Mas, not to mention the rest of the 21-strong line of the things running away from us, it rather speaks for itself.

The impact of the light pollution has been dealt with in this blip. And in any case it's the sound that has the most impact on us.

Anyone who has stood relatively near to a wind turbine will be familiar with the rhythmic swoosh that the blades make as they rotate... but it's not as simple as just being a swoosh, the sound is much more complicated than that with many different ups and downs. The amount and type of noise that the turbines generate depends on the wind speed and direction, the weather conditions and in particular the humidity.

Yesterday afternoon the wind dropped completely and every single one of the hundreds of turbines that we can see was at a standstill. The turbine in front of the Mas was still making a noise though, a humming sound which went on for about fifteen seconds, stopped for two seconds, and then repeated itself... must have been the motors searching for wind. In very high winds we don't notice the turbine noise because the wind itself is making so much noise in the pine trees that we can barely hear ourselves think!

The most turbine noise is heard for most of the time, i.e. when the wind's fair to middling. We find that we can ignore the noise for a little while, and then we'll notice it again with a vengance, but it's the noise that you can't hear that's most worrying... about which there are a lot of recent articles on the internet.

The shadows of the moving blades are also annoying, and not only when we are walking or driving through them. At about 7.30 every sunny morning the shadow has a strobing effect on our bedoom window (even though we have thick curtains and an external blind) and also through the bathroom window - so much so that we have to shut the bathroom door - and it continues for about an hour. It's a good job that neither of us, or the dog, are affected by epilepsy! However we may be affected by one of the well documented physical effects of living near to wind turbines as Steve is suffering with dizziness and other related symptoms, even though the ENT specialist says that his ears are perfect. Unfortunately we'll never know the truth.

Over the past few weeks we've been watching the BBC2 programme Windfarm Wars with interest, although it's now finished, and through all four episodes Steve and I have sat there absolutely gobsmacked at some of the rubbish... no, lies, that the wind company have come out with. Don't be fooled into thinking that they want to save the planet, they want to make money and lots of it.

p.s. I've just noticed the year ago blip... there's a turbine dead centre now.