Epiphany

So, have the Christmas decorations come down? Certainly not. In this little outpost of Scandinavia they'll stay up until the twentieth day of Christmas, that is, Knut's Day (January 13th). 

That's the day of julgransplundring (plundering the Christmas tree), an occasion enjoyed by all children. To be more precise, it's the last day of julgransplundring. My mum tells me that in Sundsvall it took place over several days, so the children could go from neighbour to neighbour seeing the decorations and having a celebration at each household. It was during one such visit, at the age of five, that my mum received her first marriage proposal, from the similarly aged Åke Frisk. In order to represent their new status, Åke instructed her to make the motion of stirring the cooking pot.

Anyway it seems a bit premature to have the house bare on the day of the Three Kings, the main celebration in Spain. And in the Orthodox Church today is Christmas Eve, tomorrow is Christmas Day...

Epiphany:  God revealed in the infant Jesus Christ. In secularized form the word has come (from Joyce?) to mean a sense of revelation in some natural scene or event. It's become rather an insult-word, a way to label and dismiss one common type of modern poem. 

But still, we begin to look outside the festive season and beyond. To Veganuary and our resolutions and the whistling of the birds. 

The gorse was flowering at Bulverhythe (St Leonards-on-Sea). This one had a little Christmas decoration of its own.

It's the webby tent of the Gorse Spider Mite, Tetranychus lintearius.

Potential biomedical uses of the incredibly fine silk: 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-74766-7

Easily missed among residential streets, these are the ruins of the chancel of St Mary Bulverhythe. The church dates from shortly before 1372, but re-used materials from an earlier Norman church established by the devout Robert Count of Eu and Lord of Hastings. He was one of William's main supporters in 1066, and was given Hastings Castle in 1068. 

[Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_sellens/3999206240/ . Undated illustration of St Mary Bulverhythe, posted by Phil Sellens. Copyright: Creative Commons.]

The water in the background was a sea inlet at Glyne Gap. Today it's marshland. 

The former sea inlet at Glyne Gap (between Bulverhythe and Bexhill).

The beach at Bulverhythe, looking towards St Leonards Marina. This is the spot where, at very low tide, you can see exposed ribs of the Amsterdam, an East Indiaman that went down in a storm on 26 January 1749. It is the best preserved remnant of a Dutch East India vessel and is the property of the Dutch government, who have ambitious plans to move it in toto to the Netherlands. (There is currently a full-size replica at the Dutch National Maritime Museum.)

https://the-past.com/review/whats-on/the-shipwreck-museum-hastings-and-the-wreck-of-the-amsterdam/

I'm saying it went down in a storm, but the online narratives do vary quite a bit.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-430961/Bloody-past-wreckers.html

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The easterly part of Bulverhythe was once known as Bo-Peep. There was an inn here, called the New England Bank, above the river Asten. One of its visitors was John Keats (Haydon had recommended it); Keats was just getting going on Endymion, in late May 1817. Bo-Peep was quite an isolated place then; this was ten years before the Burtons started building their fine new resort named St Leonards on Sea. It was while staying here that Keats met and kissed Isabella Jones. 

https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/1817-05-01.html

https://ryesown.co.uk/the-bulverhythe/

https://www.hastingspubhistory.com/page16.html

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