A New Year, A New Calendar

Each year I create a customized calendar which I give as gifts to various friends and family members. Each month features a photograph from my travels.  Every year has a theme, usually one particular country or city.  Since I did not travel in 2019 due to the pandemic, last year the photographs were all of my hometown of Cleveland.  For my new 2022 calendar, the theme is "Parks and Gardens".  I went through all my travel files and picked out pictures from Mexico, England, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Norway, and Ohio.  

Of course, I keep one for myself, and it is hanging by my desk where I work on this blog.  Here is the page for the month of January with a photograph of the garden at Arundel Castle in England.

I visited Arundel Castel on my first trip to England, quite a few years ago, before I started writing this blog.  It is located in West Sussex in the south of England.  The castle was begun in the 11th century immediately after the Norman conquest.  Parts of the original Norman keep and gatehouse still stand.  The castle was expanded through the centuries, and for over 800 years it has been the residence of the Dukes of Norfolk and their ancestors.  (The 3rd Duke of Norfolk was the uncle of Anne Boleyn, the ill-fated wife of Henry VIII.)  The castle was damaged during the English Civil War, but it was restored in the 1800s by the 15th Duke of Norfolk.  The castle and its grounds have been used as a film location for the TV series "Doctor Who" and the motion pictures "The Madness of King George", "The Young Victoria", and "Wonder Woman".