It was a cold and overcast morning today, a grey damp sky with the sun trying to break through. Earlier in the week I had pencilled in my diary ‘visit Castle Howard’ our first visit of 2018. I had been out earlier with M & G, had breakfast, got showered and changed, packed the car and left home around 10.15am. It was 11.00am when I parked the car in the car park in the grounds of Castle Howard. As is always it was a couple of degrees colder here than at home and was pleased I had one of my winter jackets in the car. I took the girls M & G for a walk through the woods next to the cricket square to let them have a good run before I clipped them on to their short leads and headed into the Courtyard and ticket office before our walk around the estate. It was pleasantly quiet really, there was a few cars in the car park although walking round there wasn’t many people about at all.

The house was looking splendid as always, I imagine the staff would have been busy inside cleaning and preparing the house for the start of the season in a few months’ time. We walked past the southern aspect of the house, admiring all the geese, there must have been several hundred of them standing on the bank of the South lake as we passed on our way up to ‘Ray Woods’. We stopped and had a breather at the top of the hill before going through the gate into the woods. It was nice to see the daffodils poking their heads through the grass, I think some of them will be flowering shortly at this rate. Once through the woods we walked around the Temple of the Winds, stopping to admire the stunning views across the countryside. From the Temple we headed down the slope to the South Lake and walked around the far side off the lake listening to the little Tufted Ducks calling to each other. From the lake we headed back towards the house stopping at the Atlas Fountain to admire the workmanship of this superb fountain albeit drained and empty during the winter months. It is a pleasant five minute walk back to the courtyard where Jenny did some shopping in the farm shop whilst I took the dogs back to the car, dried them down before putting them in, once they settled down I headed back to the courtyard shop and bought some cups of tea and sandwiches to take back to the car and have a picnic with M & G. A lovely morning.