After a dull, misty, and cloudy start to the day, by breakfast time the sun was beginning to break through the low mist, by 10.00am the mist and mirk had lifted and the sun was shining brightly.

After a busy week we decided to get out and about for the day so headed over to Pocklington for a walk around the Gardens at Burnby Hall. I cannot believe that my last visit here was in 2017. It is just a forty-five-minute journey by car from home, we arrived just after 10 o’clock and the car park was filling up quickly. It was a beautiful morning, sunny with just a very faint westerly breeze and 8c but very pleasant in the sunshine. After leaving the visitors centre, we headed in an anti-clockwise direction around the upper pond. A ‘new’ path has been created since my last visit with planted borders of Heathers, Hellebore’s, Cyclamen, and clumps of Snowdrops gently swaying from side to side in the light morning breeze. There must have been nearly a dozen white Doves take to the wing from their white dovecote, I think we must have startled them as we walked past, they took off on mass flying in a wide arch, heading in the direction of the café before heading back to the safety of their dovecote. We continued our walk along side the lake, dropping down passing the fenced off ancient tree stump on the left and the stumpery on the right. The views from this part of the garden looking across the lake towards the shelter and rock garden are beautiful, especially at this time of year with the heathers in full flower. Back in 2017 when we last visited, work to reconfigure the rock gardens and paths through were still very much work in progress, so it was nice to see the finished result today. Large swathes of heathers provided lots of colour along with Ferns, Primulas, and clumps of Daffodils, it really was a very pleasant and colourful walk through the rock garden. As we neared the upper lake it was nice to see some of the water lilies just breaking the surface of the water, it will be several months before they come into flower.

I was surprised to see the Koi carp coming to the surface for food, the water boiled as you approach the waters edge with the fish hoping for a feed, the water is still far too cold for them to be fed at the moment. After watching the fish for a few minutes, we headed over to the café for some refreshment, the sun was shining with just a very faint breeze so we sat outside the café and enjoyed a very pleasant pot of tea and toasted sandwich. I find it hard to believe that here we are in the first week of March and able to sit outside enjoying our brunch with the sunshine.  I look forward to our next visit and not leave it another seven years before we return.