Calke gardens, and a walk in the park

Last week was mainly damp and drizzly so my day out had to wait till Thursday. Having waited so long the sun was glorious.

I'd chosen Calke as our destination because of the fantastic display of pumpkins and squashes they put on show every autumn. So first we headed past the house and up the hill to the gardens.

For some reason the one-way system has been changed since our last visit in summer, so we side-tracked slightly up the avenue of trees which leads to the church, and which looks beautiful with afternoon sun slanting through. In spring there are snowdrops under the trees; now there are clumps of cyclamen. It's a very short detour, up the path, round the church, back down the path, and on to the gardens.

As you enter the walled garden to your left in an auricula theatre, built to show off those spring flowers out of the rain. At various times of year there are snowdrops, or geraniums, or, yes, auriculas, but for autumn pumpkins take centre stage. There's such an amazing range of colours and sizes - grey, yellow, orange, green, mottled, smooth, little, large, round, pear-shaped, even  super-long cucumber shapes. Most are edible but some are grown just for ornamental use, and others can be hollowed out as musical instruments.

The sun was still shining brightly through the palm trees but the flowers and foliage had a distinctive autumnal feel.

It wasn't particularly busy, but this scarecrow was wearing a mask just in case we decided to get too close.

The kitchen gardens are hidden from the house by a small wooded area so we left following the paths through there, hoping to catch sight of the noisy rutting stags but they were somewhere further away in the deer park.

From here, it was downhill to the house, then back up to the stable block, before heading out into the park, in a different direction to the one we took last time.

From outside the house's gates we headed along the exit road, then through sheep pastures, to a some ruins, once a shelter designed to attract deer closer to the house.

There are various marked routes around the park and I'd intended to follow the 'red route' till distracted by the sight of this stile, without fence or wall, but which led to a well-trodden path through trees back in the vague direction of the car park.  

 The earlier clear skies had clouded over, and, though we didn't get caught in any rain, someone somewhere must have got wet for this rainbow to appear as we headed back to the car.