After quite a busy week with one thing and another and a hectic day filming on Wednesday, we, along with Meg and Gracie headed over to Castle Howard for a walk around the estate.

It was quite a dull start to the morning but by the time we arrived and parked the car around 10.15am the sun was beginning to shine, and a blue sky was emerging from the grey gloom. We picked up a coffee from the coffee shop on entering the courtyard and sat for a few moments watching a Peacock preen itself whilst it was sat on the windowsill of the farm shop, completely oblivious of all the young children standing on the bench in front of it wanting to stroke it!

After a few moments we made our way across the courtyard, through the booking hall and out into the grounds of the stately home. The daffodils that covered the grass like a huge yellow blanket several weeks ago had started to die back and small clumps of yellow Cow slips were popping up all over the place. Instead of heading towards the house, we ventured into the walled garden through one of the ornate wrought iron side gates. We were greeted with a mass of flowers, the outer borders looked beautiful with lots of bright red tulips and alliums swaying gently in the light morning breeze. The central beds looked colourful too filled with coral-coloured tulips, several of the smaller beds looked extremely pretty filled with Allium and Forget me knot flowers. The ornate fountain which is usually situated on a plinth in the centre of the fishpond was still away being restored, but the gardens looked a picture. We left via the gate opposite the Atlas fountain and made our way up towards the house. We stopped in front of the stately home for a several minutes to take a couple of photographs of Meg and Gracie sat on the south terrace with the house in the background. I noticed several of the raised flower beds had flowering tulips in so headed off to get some photographs, after which we continued along the south terrace passing the time capsule and up the slope towards Ray wood. The daffodils here too had died back but were being replaced with wild vibrant yellow cowslips and several varieties of orchid and wildflowers. On reaching the edge of the wood we stopped for a rest and admire the view back towards the house and over to the South Lake. On reaching the gate into the wood the sunlight was shining through the trees onto the colourful flowering Azaleas and Rhododendrons, the colour mix looked quite amazing. We continued walking through the woods, Meg and Gracie were in their element with lots of different smells, we branched off the main path every now and then onto the smaller tracks when another colourful shrub came into view. We eventually came out of the woods adjacent to the Temple of Four Winds. There were beautiful clear views looking across the farmland and over towards the New Bridge and Mausoleum. We followed the lower terrace back towards the house, stopping every now and then to admire the flowering Rhododendrons. Just before we reached the house, we headed over to the Atlas Fountain which today was in full flow, spouting water from all four Tritons, it does look quite a spectacle especially with the house as a backdrop. From the fountain it is just a few minutes’ walk to the house, and as the weather was quite warm and sunny we stopped and had brunch on the lawn with sandwiches and tea from the Fitzroy restaurant, a very pleasant end to a lovely morning.