It was a beautiful Spring like morning today, a cold start earlier whilst out with Meg & Gracie, but a clear blue sky and sunshine made for a lovely day.

With the weather forecast being quite favourable today, after breakfast we loaded the dogs in the car and headed off for another walk around the Castle Howard Estate. It was a quiet drive, the A64 being remarkably quiet for a change. On arrival we popped into the coffee shop for a takeaway coffee and a piece of caramel slice (my favourite) before heading across the courtyard to the booking office. It is always good fun trying to juggle a coffee and cake in one hand and two dogs in the other, both of whom are quite keen to have some of the cake too, anyway, having done it several times now I feel quite confident that I have everything under control. 

After passing through the booking office, we made our way towards the southern aspects of the house. The walled garden on the right is still closed, I think it will be opening towards the end of the month. I’m looking forward to having a walk through there.  It is just five weeks since our last visit to the estate and within that time the snowdrops have all but finished and the daffodils which were just poking through the lawned areas are now in flower, I think within the next fortnight they will be in full flower, but even so, today they made for a pretty nice picture. 

Considering it was such a lovely morning, I thought there may have been more visitors than there were today, we continued our walk, stopping at the southeast corner of the house to dispose of our coffee cups before heading off along the ‘South Parterre’, the house as always looks beautiful bathed in the morning sunshine. We stopped several times so I could take some photographs before walking past the ‘time capsule’ and along the southern terrace up the gentle slope and into ‘Ray Wood’. Through the wooden five bar gate the first thing I noticed was some of the Azaleas were already in flower, their beautiful light purple and ivory white flowers providing lots of colour in the wooded area. Huge swathes of daffodils line both sides of the track through the wood.  We continued our walk through the woods until we reached the ‘Temple of Four Winds’, stopping for a few moments to absorb the views of the countryside. There were lovely views across the fields and rolling countryside, as there was looking over towards the ‘new bridge’ and mausoleum. A beautiful Azalea was in full flower adjacent to the left-hand side of the Temple and made for a lovely photograph.

We continued our journey back along the Southern terrace, here the daffodils formed a huge yellow blanket along both sides of the terrace. We stopped for several moments to take photographs and admire the view across the South Lake, several groups of Tufted ducks were being quite vocal on the lake, and a large flock of geese were busily grazing on the lush grass adjacent to the waters edge. Continuing our walk past the house we headed back to the Courtyard for a very pleasant brunch in the sunshine.