After a hectic week it was nice to get out and about this morning as well as a change of scenery from our own four walls.

I had been out earlier in the morning with Meg and Gracie and had a pleasant walk around the Barff, an overnight frost had firmed up the wet ground a little which was quite crisp under foot.

After breakfast we headed over to Castle Howard for a walk around the estate, it had slipped my mind that today was another Bank Holiday, I usually try to avoid the traffic on the A64 on Bank holidays! The journey from home was fine till we exited the ‘Hopgrove roundabout’ when traffic on the A64 came to a standstill, this was mainly due to the sheer volume of traffic and other car drivers’ inability to understand that when a dual carriageway ends you have to move over into the left-hand lane! 

We arrived at Castle Howard 30 minutes late due to the hold up earlier. Meg & Gracie were keen to get out of the car for another morning walk, so once we had put our winter jackets on, we headed over to the courtyard café for a little refreshment and cake (it is really nice coffee). The queue at the ticket office stretched halfway across the courtyard, this was due to most of the visitors wanting to visit the house before it closed after the Christmas period, and today was the last day.

After showing our passes and exchanging pleasantries with the staff we headed under the archway and along the gravelled track towards the house, the wall garden was closed for winter maintenance.

It was a beautiful morning, cold but the winter sunshine provided some warmth, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the house looked beautiful bathed in sun and set against a blue, cloudless sky. On passing the house on the left, we followed the path and headed up the slope to ‘Ray Wood’, stopping several times to admire the view looking back towards the house and over the South Lake. After passing through the gate and into the woodland, it was nice to see clumps of snowdrops just poking through from under the leaf litter. It will be a few more weeks though before they start to flower. Considering the wet weather, we have had lately the trail through the woods was reasonably firm. Lots of autumn leaves had blown into large piles alongside the wire fencing which Meg enjoyed running through and rolling amongst, Gracie shows no interest at all and lets Meg get on with it. After passing through another wooden gate, we emerge near to the ‘Temple of Four winds’, the view from here looking across the fields is breathtaking, especially on a day like today, you could see for miles. Several other visitors were heading over towards ‘the New Bridge’ and onto the ‘Family Mausoleum’ in the distant. After admiring the view from the Temple for several minutes we headed back towards the house along the ‘Southern Terrace’, stopping every now and then for photographs and watching the melee on the ‘South Lake’ as several groups of geese were ganging up on a small group of Tufted Ducks. By the time we reached the house we were tempted to pop into the marquee which had been serving as a gift shop and overflow restaurant during the Christmas period, but as we had the dogs with us decided to walk on to the Courtyard café were we enjoyed a very pleasant brunch sat outside on the decking, Meg and Gracie laid contently under the table catching up on their sleep, before heading back to the car and the journey home.