It was a dry, bright and sunny start to the day, 13c which was much cooler than of late, but it was fine and dry, so after breakfast we headed over to Castle Howard for a walk around their estate with Meg and Gracie.

It was just after 10.00am as we were buying a coffee in the café in the courtyard, the sun was shining nicely and as I was sat on one of the benches in the courtyard enjoying my coffee, I could feel the warmth of the sun through my jacket. Suitably refreshed we exchanged pleasantries with the staff in the booking office and headed over to have a walk around the beautiful Walled Gardens. The gardens change on every visit and this morning was no different, the planting was colourful and vibrant. The borders were a picture, the tall stems of the Purple topped Vervain caught my eye immediately on entering the garden, gently swaying in the light morning breeze. Tall white Galtonia Candicans stood proud, well over a metre in height and laden with hundreds of white snowdrop type florets. One of my favourite shrubs though was the Orange coloured Alstroemeria, standing at just under a metre in height with 6 trumpet shaped blooms per stem and approximately ten stems was an absolute picture, the orange and yellow florets with light brown flashes just glistened in the morning sunlight. A little further along the border and set back against the wall were two massive Cotton Thistle plants, standing well over two meters in height, the leaves a white, silvery colour, prickly and huge, well over the size of my hand. Reluctantly leaving the borders we continued our walk into the centre of the walled garden, enjoying the formal gardens and vegetable gardens, stopping to admire the shoal of Goldfish in the circular pond. I always enjoy the view from the wrought gate looking back over the pond towards the gardener’s cottage.

After passing through the wrought iron gate, we headed along the Lime Terrace to the Southwest corner of the house. This view is always special for me, especially when the house is set against a clear blue sky with the sun  shining on the southern facade. Unfortunately, this morning there was a cloudy sky, but the view was equally as pleasing on the eye. We continued our walk along the gravelled path, Meg taking great delight by stopping and rolling in the damp wet grass adjacent to the path, any opportunity she gets to roll on wet grass and Autumn leaves Meg will take it. We stopped at the South entrance for a few moments to admire one of the estates noisy Peacocks sat a balustrade contently watching the world go by. We continued a little further stopping at the ‘Time Capsule’ for a sit on the wooden bench alongside one of the statues for a moment, just to watch a farm hand busily driving his tractor up and down, along the side of the South lake threshing the freshly cut hay. It was quite therapeutic watching hay as it spun out of the twines of the thresher.  Continuing our walk up the slope we passed ‘Versus’ one of Tony Craggs masterpieces on our left. On reaching the top of the slope we walked through the wooden gate into Ray Wood and followed the track to the Temple of Four Winds. Climbing up the stone steps and peeping inside the Temple was another of Tony Craggs creations entitled ‘Eroded Landscape’. It was good to see a herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle busily grazing in the fields close to the Temple today, the young calves being very noisy and inquisitive. On leaving the Temple we headed down the slope to the edge of the ‘South Lake’, a pair of Tufted ducks were busily going about their business when a small flock of Greylag Geese landed beside them, the ducks were not happy and exchanged quite a lot of chatter between them and the geese. We continued our walk along the waters edge back towards the house, stopping to admire the ‘Runner’ another of Tony Craggs creations set in a lovely position with the magnificent house as the backdrop. It is a gently climb from the South lake to the house, so it was a nice ambling walk past the Southern aspects of the building, passing ‘Industrial Nature’ on the edge of the lawn. I popped over to get a couple of photographs of the house from the raised beds on the lawn which looked really colourful, after which it was a pleasant walk back to the Courtyard cafe, Meg and Gracie grateful for a drink and quiet snooze under the table as we enjoyed a very pleasant late lunch before the journey home.