Although a yellow fog weather warning was in place for our area for today, we woke up to a bright and frosty morning, with a light mist.

After a short early morning dog walk, we loaded the car for a day out to Castle Howard with Meg & Gracie. This was Meg’s first visit and her longest walk since she had Cruciate ligament surgery in early November 2024.

After a straightforward drive we arrived in the car park at 10.30am and made our way to the ‘Courtyard café’ for a coffee before heading across the cobbled stone of the courtyard to the ticket office. The main house is closed until Spring so everywhere was relatively quiet, just a steady trickle of like-minded visitors coming to enjoy a pleasant walk in the fresh air. All the snow from just over a week ago had melted though the ground was still quite frozen from the past week of frosts.

It was a beautiful sunny morning with not a cloud in the sky, a light Westerly breeze kept the temperature down at around 0c. On leaving the ‘ticket office’ we walked along the gravelled drive passing the ‘Walled Garden’ on our right. The house was bathed in sunshine when we arrived five minutes later. The Christmas marquee that was temporarily attached to the west wing of the house had been removed, the remaining grass looked a bit sorry for itself but with a bit of care it should soon be back to normal. The view to our right looking over towards the ‘Atlas fountain’ with the ‘Pyramid’ in the background looked beautiful, especially with the ‘south lawn’ covered in frost and bathed in the morning sunshine. Continuing our walk, we passed the house on our left and walked over the ‘Time Capsule’, looking to our right the ‘South lake’ was well frozen with no sign of the Swans, Geese or ducks which can usually be seen on the water.

It was nice to see the Daffodils beginning to show on the grassy bank leading up to ‘Ray Wood’. We stopped several times whilst walking up the slope, just to admire the views looking back towards the house and South Lake. On arrival at the top of the slope we opened the wooden gate and headed into the woods, huge clusters of Snowdrops were just poking through the undergrowth and many of the Rhododendrons were in bud, no doubt they will have several setbacks over the next couple of weeks due to the predicted colder winter weather forecasted for the end of the month. Meg always likes this part of the walk as there are plenty of fallen autumnal leaves on the ground which she enjoys rolling amongst. The sun cast long shadows across our trail, the lack of leaves on the trees gave us good views of the frozen lake to our right. Passing through another wooden gate we soon arrived at the ‘Temple of Four Winds’, looking resplendent bathed in the winter sunlight. We stopped and watched several walkers as they made their way across the fields towards the ‘New Bridge’ and ‘Mausoleum’. After walking around the Temple, we headed down the slight slope to the banks of the ‘South Lake’ and continued our walk along the southern edge of the frozen lake. I always enjoy this part of the walk as the views looking across the lake to the house are beautiful, during the warmer months the reflections on the still water are quite mesmerising, although frozen the view today was just as good. Many of the bulrushes and reeds at the water’s edge have been cut back, giving extra clear views over the water. Leaving the lake behind us we headed back up the slope to the house, a building contractors van pulled up outside the South entrance to the house, reminding us that renovation work to restore one of the rooms on the western wing is continuing a pace and should be opening to the public later in the year. We continued our walk past the house and Walled garden to the Courtyard, where we enjoyed a very enjoyable brunch in the busy Courtyard restaurant, Meg and Gracie settled nicely at the side of our table, and despite all the distractions they both enjoyed a special doggie breakfast and snooze before we headed back to the car and the journey home.