Joseph and Mary on the Way to Bethlehem,
Hugo van der Goes (1430 – 1482)
Account from the 1540s of weather between Christmas and the new year:
25th: ‘Christynmas was fayre & drye without anye sune shynyng’
26th: ‘St Steven’s daye fayre & drye without any sune shynyng: toward nyght the wynd dyd.’
27th: ‘St John’s daye was verye drye & sone shynyng.’
28th: ‘Innocente daye in the mornyng was a fayre whore froste, a fayre bryght sone shynyng, and drye daye.’
29th: ‘Saynt Thomas’s was dark, drye and after noon verye great wynde; about VI of the clocke it dyd for space of two owres and then the wynde dyd synke. It was drye.’
30th: ‘the 5 daye werys fayre and the sune dyd shyne very bryghtly.’
31st: ‘the 6 daye was dark, and rayne lyke, but at evenyng yt dyd rayne a little and was very wyndy – the nyght was much rayne’
Manuscript 62122 from The British Library, twelfth century book.
Thanks to Amy Jeffs, medievalist, Cambridge University
Secret Gardener 
Thanks for posting this. I love your blog.
Bless you. Moving against a wall of water all year, trying to breathe it, yet a key defeat was computer dying & tiny phone making it too unpleasant & unsatisfactory to work on Secret Gardener. (And some discouragement at how very secret it is, after all)
Happy new year to you, beautiful explorer, & may the earth surprise you –by curving gently beneath your vessel.