Saturday 29th July 2017

An early start today, it was a lovely morning, sunny and quite warm, so after breakfast we all headed over to Castle Howard for the morning. There was a Food fair on all weekend so thought we would have a look round and it would be good for socialising Meg and Gracie too.

Needless to say traffic on the A64 was at a standstill halfway between the Hull road junction and the  ‘Hopgrove roundabout’ and that was at 9.30am, we eventually arrived at Castle Howard some forty five minutes later,  the lateness due not to the volume of traffic but soley to a very badly designed road layout!

I have always enjoyed my visits to Castle Howard and after a walk around the cricket pitch to rid Meg and Gracie’s surplus energy we headed for the stables courtyard before heading for the ticket office and the gentle stroll towards the house. Before we reached the house though, I headed off the main track so that I could have a walk around the Walled garden. During the Spring and Summer months the garden is awash with colour and today was no different, the view around the ornamental pond and Gardener’s house are beautiful, the avenues, the clipped hedges and borders are always clean, neat and tidy and make me feel quite guilty about ours at home.  The vegetable patch looked good too, full of all the seasonal produce. From the garden we made our way along the Lime walk past the statue ‘Apollo’ and headed onto the show ground on the Southern lawn. There were marquees large and small, small tents, huge tents, trailers and caravans  all selling various foody products as well as items and gadgetries to do with food. The aromas drifting across the arena was enough to drive a hungry man crazy. Lots of stalls selling locally produced food and gifts which was great to see. The art and craft marquees were full of various displays and stalls, all tempting the visitors. We listened to some of the celebrity chef’s giving foody talks and demonstrations which were quite entertaining and informative before heading off to the music tent for a sit down and rest the weary legs for a few minutes. After another walk around the arena we headed out for a walk around the South Lake, unfortunately the sun had disappeared behind some huge grey clouds for the next thirty minutes or so, which was disappointing as there are some lovely views from the far corner of the lake looking back towards the house. It was nice to see the ‘Prince of Wales Fountain’ working this morning, sending a huge plume of water some fifty feet into the air. We continued our walk around the lake and headed back towards the house, the ‘Atlas Fountain’ was looking good over on the left. By now the sun had come out again so as we were outside the west wing we stopped for coffee and cake in the Fitzroy Restaurant, well as we had the dogs with us we sat outside which was extremely pleasant.  After some refreshment (Pot of tea and a Yorkshire scone) we headed over to the Garden Centre for a browse. Always a nice garden centre, everything looks well-presented and smart  as well as having some fine looking plants, we purchased a plum tree for the garden and some bits and pieces. Looks like it is going to be a busy afternoon once I get home.