With the Easter holidays just around the corner, we decided to have a ride over to Castle Howard with Meg & Gracie before the influx of holiday visitors.

After a straightforward journey along the A64, it was just a steady 50-minute drive from home. The car temperature gauge was reading 10C at 10.30am as I parked up in the car park and unloaded Meg & Gracie from the rear of the car. It was a pleasant sunny morning with a moderate breeze which is always good for a walk around the estate grounds, the weather forecast for today though, was not good with a band of heavy rain forecast for our area, fortunately it didn’t materialise and was probably the reason why there were so few visitors here today.

After purchasing a coffee & biscuit from the takeaway café we headed across the pebbled courtyard to the booking office. After exchanging pleasantries and showing our passes with the reception staff we headed under the arch and into the grounds of the house.

The tree lined path towards the house is a mass of flowering Daffodils at the moment, with clusters of yellow primroses and Bluebells dotted amongst the trees, it really does look colourful. A small herd of willow crafted fallow deer were posing nicely amongst the trees and daffodils.

We continued our walk, passing the main house on the left, the house re opens on Saturday 1^st April after its winter spring clean, so I can imagine the staff were busily preparing it for all the visitors on Saturday. On reaching the Time capsule we paused for a few moments to watch the geese squabbling on the South Lake and to admire all the daffodils heading up the slope to Ray Wood and over towards the Mausoleum in the far distance.

We continued our walk up the slope, pausing again on reaching the top to admire the views behind us. After a few moments we headed through the gate and into the woods, several of the early flowering Azaleas were in full flower, their purple and red florets brightening up the area which is nicely coming back to life after the winter, it will be a few more weeks before the rest of the shrubs are in flower, today our main focus of attention was the daffodils. Meg, as usual, was full of mischief, rolling in the piles of autumn leaves along the sides of the fence. After a few moments we left the woods to walk around the Temple of Four Winds, the views from here looking over the fields to the moors or over towards the New Bridge and Mausoleum are breath-taking.

From the Temple we followed the South Terrace back towards the house, the flowering daffodils swaying gently in the morning breeze, forming a huge yellow blanket on the grassy slopes. Looking over the South Lake I spotted another willow sculpture on the far side of the lake, on closer examination it turned out to be a huge fox. The willow sculptures will be at Castle Howard from the 1^st April to the 16^th April, created by a local artist Dragon Willow. Apparently, we still have to spot the hares and owls that are around the estate somewhere, we will have to return on another day to try and find them.

After reluctantly leaving the giant fox behind I retraced my steps back to the house and on to the courtyard were we enjoyed a very pleasant brunch in the courtyard café, which was bathed in afternoon sun.