You will recall from a previous post that over the past few years I have created a personalised calendar as a Christmas present for Mr C. For 2016 a fellow blogger sent me a lovely calendar in PDF format that I was able to print off hang on the wall above my computer. I enjoyed his beautiful photos so much that when the year ended I left the calendar hanging up with December’s photo as we crossed over into the New Year of 2017.

I was wondering what I would replace it with until I received an email  offer from Moonpig on half price calendars. I thought the offer was too good to miss and created a January gift for me. I am impressed by the photo quality and printing, so next year I think Mr C will be getting a personally created but professionally printed calendar at full price. He is worth it

I tried to mix the photos about a bit but some of them are inevitably the same as the photos I chose for Mr C. Below is the front cover photograph that I chose for my calendar as a bit of fun. Seeing it full size and professionally printed I think it would make a good advertising photograph for Bottle Green or the Alnwick Garden

PS: Click on the top photo for links to the original uncropped photographs

For the last few years I have made a personalised calendar as a Christmas present for Mr C as one of his Christmas presents. I choose from the photographs that I have taken from the previous year, one from each month. The process of choosing causes me to reflect on the things that we have done throughout the year.

The first memorable event of 2016 was a lovely family get together in the Haughmond restaurant. One of my nephews organised the get together to make up for not being able to meet up with my mum over the Christmas period; she was ill over Christmas which meant she was unable to join the family gathering.

Mr C and I had many enjoyable days out including; Glansevern Gardens, the Brockhampton Estate, Keddleston and Chester Zoo where we were privileged to see a day-old, new born Zebra

We enjoyed several holidays and breaks, all in the UK this year. The first was a Valentine’s break in Colwall near Malvern. We travelled through the land where mistletoe grows to a delightful hotel, spending time at Gloucester Docks, Gloucester Cathedral and Tewkesbury Abbey.

This was followed by a return to Lincoln to view the Poppies: Wave displayed at the castle. This allowed Mr C to visit the National Civil War museum on the way home. The museum, annoyingly for Mr C, was not quite open the last time we tried to visit after a stay in Lincoln.

A stay in Wells at Stobbery House was the highlight of the year. A beautiful setting and a place we will return to at Easter in 2017 which will allow us to take part in the Easter service at Wells Cathedral. Whilst we were in Wells we visited the Cathedral and the bishop’s palace. Stobbery was only able to accommodate us for three of our four nights’ break so we moved on to Salisbury taking in Stonehenge and staying at the White Hart for our final night’s stay. We enjoyed our visit to Stonehenge because the site access has been transformed and the stones are able to be enjoyed in the context of the original landscape. We took a leisurely stroll to the stones and back again. Unfortunately our choice of venue for our evening meal during our stay in Salisbury did not meet expectations. The meal was quite unpleasant and not up to the standard of our previous visit to the same venue.

For our main holiday we visited Northumberland choosing Newcastle and Alnwick as places to stay. Our stay in the Jesmond Dene Hotel just outside Newcastle was a perfect choice. It was a relaxing place to stay with music playing as we entered the room and a rooftop patio where we could sit out and relax in the exceptionally warm autumn sunshine. One evening during our stay we dined in the Peace & Loaf restaurant which turned out to be a special dining experience. After our stay in the Jesmond Dene we moved from the city to a small B&B in Alnwick; although it was lovely we missed staying in our usual venue, the Coach House. We did however meet our friends, the former owners of the Coach House and enjoyed a wonderful evening in the Alnwick Tree House with them. Somehow we managed to get the dates of our holiday muddled up and we ended up returning home a day earlier than we had booked for…

The places we visited during our stay included Vindolanda & The Roman Army Museum, Alnwick Garden, Brinkburn Priory,  Wallington, the coastal drive leading to the Grace Darling museum and Manderston where we met a delightful lady guide who we came to realise had a long standing connection with the family and was highly regarded by them. Also during our stay we tried to find some stones displaying megalithic rock art that are prevalent in the area. Unfortunately we failed in the quest, although I did get to meet a cow half way up a hillside. Mr C romped up the hill and disappeared out of sight and the sweet cow came down to say hello, licking me profusely in the process. On our way home we stopped briefly in Ripon so that Mr C could visit the Green Howards military museum.

Our final vacation of the year was our annual trip with my mum and the venue was Winchester.  The Cathedral wasn’t quite as tranquil as the last time we visited due to ongoing repair work and scaffolding leading to parts of the Cathedral being closed or obscured. We were however able to see the Winchester Bible in its temporary display area. During our stay we visited the Mary Rose museum, Hinton Ampner,the Royal Green Jackets museum & diorama (which had closed the day before our last visit), The Great Hall and its garden, The hospital of St Cross and The Vyne.  We also saw HMS Victory which is in the process of being restored including a more historically accurate paint scheme.

On a less happy note I had to deal with a small bump to the back of my car and some awful insect bites which thankfully subsided over time. These were obtained whilst celebrating my brothers wedding which was a much a happier occasion.

We completed several household projects; tiling the hall, a new pavia drive and patio and the still ongoing garden project. The latter, and favourable weather, led to much dining on the patio in the summer months. The birds also saw fit to give us the gift of a sunflower which looked spectacular.

We also went on our annual London trip which might be the last one in this format. We had a lovely afternoon visiting the museum of The Order of St Cross.

The year concluded with many family gatherings, several of which we hosted, leaving us a little tired and in need of a few days rest.

I wonder what 2017 will bring…

• Click on the photo for links to the original size photographs.