Introduction
Since December last year I have been writing a regular monthly Rover’s Almanac to share with you some of the more prosaic anchor points and markers that I personally cherish.
This is the thirteenth instalment and marks the completion of the journey from December 2023 to December 2024.
As the year ends, I will review the almanac thus far and reflect on its place in my writing - it may well continue in 2025.
Right now, let’s look ahead to the final month of the year - December 2024.
Calendar
Sunday 1st December - Start of Meteorological Winter
Sunday 1st December - Start of Advent
Saturday 21st December - Winter Solstice 09:19
Saturday 21st December - Start of Astronomical Winter
Saturday 21st December - Start of Yule
Saturday 21st December - Capricorn Season
Tuesday 24th December - Christmas Eve
Wednesday 25th December - Christmas Day
Thursday 26th December - Boxing Day/St Stephen’s Day
Tuesday 31st December - New Year’s Eve
Moon Calendar
Sunday 1st December - New Moon 06:21
Sunday 8th December - First Quarter Moon 15:27
Sunday 15th December - Full Moon: Oak Moon / Full Cold Moon / Moon Before Yule 09:02
Sunday 22nd December - Last Quarter Moon 22:18
Monday 30th December - New Moon 22:27
Sky Calendar
Saturday 7th December - Earth’s closest approach to Jupiter (opposition).
Sunday 8th December - Keep watch after sunset to see a close encounter between Saturn and the first quarter moon.
Saturday 14th December - Geminids meteor shower.
Wednesday 18th December - Wake up early before sunrise to see a close encounter between Mars and the waning gibbous moon.
Friday 20th December - Wake up early before sunrise to see a close encounter between Regulus and the waning gibbous moon.
Sunday 22nd December - Ursids meteor shower.
Wednesday 25th December - Best morning to see Mercury.
The Rover’s Almanac: December 2024
Step outside the van in December, look up, and you never know what you might see. The nights are long and beautiful now, stars at their brightest, the moon high and clear.
Early this morning, just after five o’clock, I tracked Polaris from the plough and watched a shooting star flash beneath the belly of Mars, which glowed red as it lay at anchor in the deep black.
Here at Dunster Beach at the start of meteorological winter, overlooking Blue Anchor Bay near Minehead, the sun is yet to rise but it’s unseasonably mild.
Up coast, a high-intensity light source shines: Hinkley Point C is aglare, lit up like a Christmas tree. There is so much light one wonders if it is operational but no, it’s still a building site - and a very expensive one. The plan to build two new nuclear reactors, the first in a new generation of nuclear power stations in Britain, is already seven years overdue and billions of pounds over budget.1
Further evidence of man’s domination of nature can be found behind me where I hear a steady roar from the Avill Flood Relief Channel. This was once the meandering last stretch and mouth of the River Avill, thought to have inspired parts of the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful.2
To reduce flooding around nearby farmland, holiday chalets, and a golf course, this section of the river was dredged, resulting in the total destruction of stream-life and loss of habitat for running sea trout.3
From the footbridge I watch the river running urgently below, silently slipping over its concrete bed. When it hits the steps cascading on to the beach it begins to roar, one last cry of indignation before being swallowed up by the sea, the salt stinging its eyes.
I walk down to the beach where the tide is rising. Unseen, the waves come at me in the dark dawn, the sound is unsettling. Some small creature hidden away in the shadows is grunting and squealing, fighting for life against whatever has come for it.
Later the tide rolls out and the strange light of daybreak washes in, revealing more of the landscape. As the sea retreats, I gain access to softer ground where the sand gives way under my heel with a satisfying sink.
Birds gather where the river meets the sea: swans, Canada geese, and whistling wigeon dabble in the outflow. Heron wheels over my head and pushes out over the water to settle on a sandbank - good fishing my friend.
Estuaries and river-mouths are full of waders during winter: the water never freezes and there is a reliable source of food. I believe kingfishers and otters move to estuaries now for the same reasons.
Across the fields behind the beach a loud hoot announces the arrival of the West Somerset Railway Christmas Train. Passengers feeling the festive vibes have booked a return ticket, departing from Bishops Lydeard at 10:50am, travelling along some of the twenty miles of heritage railway, before alighting at Minehead Station to browse the Christmas market.
Christmas Day is on a Wednesday this year. How do you celebrate? Five years ago we tried leaning into traditional Yuletide celebrations and enjoyed rich rewards. I wanted to explore whether the blood of old pagan Celtic-Brythonic rituals, that thrived before the Roman conquest and the influence of the church, still flowed in my veins. The twelve days of Yuletide gave me somewhere to start.
Yule or Jul means wheel in Norwegian: ‘the great cosmic wheel of the year, the fiery hub of the universe, the symbolic Wheel of Time.’4
Yule begins on the winter solstice (Saturday 21st December), this year coinciding with the start of astronomical winter, and the beginning of Capricorn season.
The folklore says the sun stands still. The wheel grinds to a halt - almost. Holding our breath in anticipation we watch with rapt attention to see whether it will turn through and begin a new cycle of seasons. Will we emerge from the darkness? Will the sun rise again?
The Old English name for December is [Ærra]-Geol-monaþ, meaning before-yule-month, and ancient Germanic calendars document Yule celebrations as far back as the fifth-century, when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes began to enter Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Here in Albion (a fourth-century Greek word) they encountered the ragged survivors of Brittania (the Roman name for Britain) who held in their hearts the remnants of the Celtic-Brythonic culture harking back to the Pretani (the painted ones) and the Cymry (the name used by the Britons to describe themselves).
These ingredients came together in the cauldron of regeneration. Ancient traditions at this time of year include animal sacrifice, feasting, and drinking merrily with fellow farmers and clansmen. Celtic Druids would gather mistletoe. The Yule Log, a decorated tree or tree stump, comes from Norse traditions: traditionally a log of sacred oak, slow burning, giving out great heat, it was placed on the fire with much ceremony, and the ashes were kept for fertility rituals. Christmas trees are direct descendants of Yule Logs and we still hang mistletoe over our doorways.
The Christian church adopted this time to celebrate the birth of Christ. When Christianity spread throughout Europe in the sixth and seventh centuries, many pagan winter solstice traditions were incorporated into Christmas celebrations. Yule was reformulated to serve the new religion: Yule, Yuletide (Yule-time), hence Christide, Christmastide and Christmas.
In previous years living in houses, the Yule log has been central to our celebrations.
There is no room for a Yule Log in the van5 so we have incorporated an Icelandic tradition instead. Jólabókaflóð6 or Christmas Book Flood involves giving and receiving new books on Christmas Eve and reading them together while eating chocolate with a warm drink.
The full moon is on Sunday 15th December: Oak Moon. It also goes by the name of Full Cold Moon and Moon Before Yule.
In December the holly’s berries are at their most ripe and beautiful and another seasonal emblem, Robin Red Breast, sings throughout the month.
We’re heading across the Somerset Levels in early December and hope to see the murmurations of starlings over one of the largest lowland wetlands in Britain, the Avalon Marshes.
This month breathtaking murmurations reach their peak. Murmurations are the gatherings and swooping of thousands of starlings on winter evenings above reed beds. They begin to amass in November, but reach their greatest numbers this month and next, with up to 100,000 birds in some flocks. In the early evening, just before dusk, the birds take to the sky in such masses that the sky is blackened. They then move in seemingly coordinated swirls and swoops until the sky is dark, when they settle down to roost for the night.7
Fieldfares, large colourful thrushes, come down from the semi-arctic regions where they breed to overwinter in Britain. They gather in flocks, together with redwings, numbering anything between ten or twenty to several hundred strong. These chuckling groups roam the countryside looking for food.
They will be attracted to the freshly ploughed fields on farms. With temperatures usually expected to drop further as Christmas approaches, farmers are busy. The reduced amount of daylight hours makes the day shorter and farmers finish earlier in the day, but in many cases if there is a lot to do, they will carry on through the evening. If a farm has dry stonewalls, they are commonly repaired now, and in field boundaries, coppicing and hedge-laying are underway.
On poultry farms, turkeys and geese are being plucked and prepared for Christmas but on dairy farms, Christmas has to come second, as the cows need to be milked every day of the year.
This is the time of darkness in our land, yet ‘tis also the season to be jolly: may you gather around the brightly burning hearth fire, may you warm your hands and faces on the glowing embers, may the mead flow plentifully, may you feast heartily with kith and kin, and may your halls be decked with boughs of holly.
Deck the hall with boughs of holly,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
'Tis the season to be jolly:
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Fill the meadcup, drain the barrel,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Troul the ancient Christmas carol.
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!See the flowing bowl before us,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Strike the harp, and join in chorus:
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Follow me in merry measure,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
While I sing of beauty's treasure.
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!Fast away the old year passes,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Hail the new, ye lads and lasses:
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Laughing quaffing all together,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Heedless of the wind and weather.
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!8
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France’s EDF Energy recently swallowed an eleven-billion-pound impairment charge. In January the company said the project was now expected to be completed by 2031 and cost up to thirty-five-billion-pound. When inflation is factored in, this figure could reach forty-six-billion-pound. It was originally expected to be complete by 2017, and cost eighteen-billion-pound.
Written by Cecil Frances Alexander and first published in her Hymns for Little Children (1848).
In 2014 some good people tried to repair some of the damage as part of the River Avill Project - with some success.
Sacred Earth Celebrations (Second Edition) by Glennie Kindred (2014).
Although eldest son Thor did spontaneously make a wreath this year and we managed to squeeze it in.
Pronounced: ‘yo-la-boke-uh-flowed’. Another way to remember it is ‘yoh-l uh- boh-k uh-flawd, joh-’. Think of the initial ‘J’ as more of an ‘I’ sound. Then, take your time with each syllable, almost as if you're saying ‘jolly book flood’, but not quite.
The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2018 by Lia Leendertz (2017).
Deck the Halls is a traditional Christmas carol with Welsh and Scottish heritage: the melody is Welsh, dating back to the sixteenth century, from a winter carol, Nos Galan. The English lyrics were written by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant, first appearing in Volume Two of Welsh Melodies by Welsh composer and harpist John Thomas (1862).