December 2013 – East of Elveden

(This winter’s berries)

The turning of the year. These past few days mark the interregnum that sits uncomfortably between Christmas and New Year – a week of virtual Sundays and a period when some of us – those who are self-employed at least – do not know whether they should be at work or not, whether they should carry on regardless or surrender to the seasonal zeitgeist of calorific leftovers, television repeats and relentless retail opportunity. This is a living limbo marked by the dull ache of too much alcohol and rich food, and too little sunlight: rural Scandinavia in a parallel universe on a bad day, where Disneyesque fibre-optic conifers and tattered tinsel replaces the glittering white rime of pines, chain store neon glare subs for the aurora borealis and the petrochemical chug of cars queuing for city centre parking space drowns the imagined crooning of fur-clad carollers, the glassy tinkle of falling icicles and the satisfying crunch of snow beneath sensible Nordic footwear. We are now so far removed from the traditional Christmas tropes that any sense of irony has long been lost, and the multiple identities – spiritual and otherwise – of the winter soltice are now commonly, if erroneously, perceived as having been replaced by Winterval, a quasi-mythical simulacrum close to the hearts of apoplectic ‘PC-gone-mad’ bashers.

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(Last winter’s icicles)

The weather doesn’t help, of course – too mild, too wet, too windy this year. At least some sort of status quo continues in the back yard where non-denominational (or possibly JW) goldfinches arrive in pairs to feast on niger seeds as they do every day, a suitably attired mirror-image illusion of avian dandies on opposite sides of the bird feeder. Meanwhile, out in the dun damp arable fields that surround the city beyond the new-build green belt, fieldfares flock – newly arrived winter visitors from Scandinavia, the real place that is, not the parallel universe version. Elsewhere, the TV flickers like a well-behaved heart monitor as a nation prepares for the ritual liver damage and rictus-grinned high spirits that signify New Year’s Eve. Or, rather, the younger ones do: most older folk ensure they are safely tucked up in bed by the witching hour when a nation stumbles forward, arse over tip, across the calendar date line. The circle is, as they say, unbroken. Happy New Year.

Today heralds the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. The last couple of weeks leading up to this seasonal turning point have been characterised, in eastern England at least, by unseasonally sunny skies and sunsets so magnificent they seem to be defying the script that dictates that late December should be grim, grey and gloomy. These are short days, certainly, but days that have been beautifully illuminated by a cool, low-slung orange sun. Oddly enough, this has put me in mind of another orange sun in an altogether more exotic place.

U Bein’s Bridge at Amarapura near Mandalay in Myanmar/Burma is a well-known tourist hotspot in that country. The 1300m-long footbridge is thought to be the longest teak bridge in the world but that is not really the reason why visitors flock here. The truth is: this particular bridge is so photogenic that if you have ever perused the glossy travel literature offered by tour operators that deal with Myanmar the chances are you will have already seen it. Tour companies tend to know what tourists want and U Bein’s Bridge is a prime example of how the iconic and visually appealing has been successfully commodified. If aesthethic capital were on par with economic capital then Myanmar would be a wealthy country.

Tour leaders tend to make sure that their foreign clients arrive here just before sunset – just enough time for a short boat excursion on Lake Taungthaman to get the best shots. While the sight of the bridge silhouetted by the setting sun is undeniably lovely, the experience can seem somewhat surreal as hordes of freshly arrived westerners eagerly snap the scene from gently bobbing boats rowed by local fishermen. The impoverished fishermen, who have never owned even the most rudimentary camera in their lives, are sufficiently familiar with the ritual to know exactly what to do and where to go. Meanwhile, the monks and villagers who obligingly cross the bridge and unwittingly silhouette themselves for the benefit of the foreign photographers seem oblivious of their walk-on role in this unfolding daily drama.