The weather was fantastic for large periods of the bank holiday weekend, and I was getting really fed up with the thought of spending the whole time indoors. Thankfully, an opportunity arose for me to spend the day in the Yorkshire Dales - specifically, at Malhamdale.

Malhamdale is where Bill Bryson (the rubbish Chancellor of Durham University) used to live; thankfully he doesn’t now, so the chances of me bumping into him and telling him exactly why he wasn’t as good a Chancellor as Peter Ustinov were low.

It was a beautiful day, though. Rolling green hills, soaring limestone cliffs, ancient waterfalls, lush vegetation, and lots of lambs and sheep, all under an azure sky. The sun was burning down on us for the whole day, and it was a good thing I remembered to take my sun block with me.

I’ve uploaded some photos onto my fancy Flickr page, although I will upload a slightly more detailed set onto my website in due course. You should take a look, if you’re interested in the countryside and suchlike. It’s one of the best parts of the Dales.

After spending my whole day in the sun, it is perhaps no surprise that I have spent many subsequent hours of the holiday sat at my computer, actually working. It sounds dull, but I get a sick pleasure from programming, and have now made my own google map! But no one else can see it. It’s a secret. It contains confidential UK Census data, and if I showed it to you, I would get sent to prison!