It has been a shocking week weatherwise so far this week, dull, damp and drizzly days with little or no sunshine, let alone the continuing Coronavirus Pandemic which unfortunately is back on its second wave in a vengeance, especially in Yorkshire at the moment.

I had a free day today, so we loaded the car with Meg & Gracie and after breakfast had a drive up to the arboretum at Thorpe Perrow to get some fresh air as well as giving the girls another walk.

I usually aim to arrive there at 11.0clock and today was no different other than we had to queue  to get into the car park, on all our previous visits to this arboretum throughout the years, albeit in the Spring for the snowdrops or daffodils etc or late October for the Halloween trail we have never had to queue to get in, here we were today, mid-week, not even the school half term holiday, having to queue to get in, I have never seen as many people at the Arboretum as there was today, we had a good ten minute walk from the car to the main entrance. Needless to say that after all the rain we have had earlier this week it was very wet and muddy underfoot. After completing the track & trace app at the main entrance we made our way along the main footpath to the streamside walk, fortunately the sun was shining and there was very little wind, such a contrast to the past few days.  The sky was a lovely shade of blue complimented with some white fluffy clouds, from a photographic point of view I like a blue sky as it complements my images nicely.

The arboretum team had set up their popular Halloween trail through the trees which in itself is well worth the visit and is probably the reason why there were so many visitors here today.

The autumn colours of the trees were at their best today, which probably explains why there were so many visitors, the light shining through the trees onto the golden-brown leaves below looked quite beautiful. We continued our walk along the streamside path, admiring the lovely purple and pink cyclamen in full flower which laid in huge patches on the woodland floor beneath the trees.

We stopped for a few moments on the wooden bridge at the end of the lake adjacent to the Milbank Pinetum to admire the colours of the trees and shrubs especially on the left-hand side where the lake runs into a stream. We continued over the bridge towards the Bird of Prey centre but before we reached it we branched off left along ‘Angels walk’ towards the ‘Jubilee Oak’ and on towards the ‘Millennium Walk’, several families were making most of the sunshine and having picnics along the waters edge. We continued around the small lake and headed towards the ‘Acorn Structure’ and butterfly garden, huge clumps of pampas grass swayed gently in the light breeze. We followed the path and joined the ‘main avenue’ and headed for the ‘monument’, the maples and acers which line the main avenue looked quite stunning today, the leaves turning to an beautiful autumnal red colour, the view along the ‘main avenue’ looking towards the main house were quite special. This particular view changes considerably throughout the seasons and is always worth the visit. After having a break at the wrought iron monument for a few minutes we continued our walk over the small stream and headed back to the café, which, due to the current covid restrictions was only able to offer a takeaway service. There was a huge canvas open sided tent on the lawned area with picnic benches beneath which provided plenty of places for the visitors to sit and enjoy their picnics. Needless to say we enjoyed a cup of tea and flapjack from the café, which ended off a very pleasant morning nicely.