I’LL be honest, I’m lacking inspiration for this week’s column. Everything feels a bit flat. The nights are drawing in, the leaves are beginning to turn, the flies have gone, there’s still no sign of an abbey on Downton and last week’s show featured gratuitous violence not seen on Sunday evening television since the days of Bergerac and Tales of the Unexpected. The dancer at the start was called Karen Standley if you’re interested.

She was a housewife from Berkshire who made up the dance herself. On behalf of thousands of boys who grew up in the 80s, I’d like to say thanks to Karen.

We drove up Coverdale and down Wharfedale last weekend for a boys’ rugby game at Skipton. The drive there was pleasant enough.

Coverdale’s nice. Someone has gone a bit fence post crazy at the top end of the Dale but I’m sure they had their reasons. Wharfedale too is no Wensleydale or Swaledale, but it has its attractions if you like your countryside slightly sanitised.

The return journey was a different matter. The road was stupid busy and progress was painfully slow.

Oversized caravans, Sunday drivers in small Taiwanese hatchbacks, motorbikes flitting in and out, and 200 million Lycra-clad cyclists. I’m exaggerating of course but only by 100 million or so. I know they’re having a bash at the Tour de France route, but you have to wonder what pleasure they get from repeatedly almost being run over by impatient car drivers overtaking at inappropriate times. At least on inner-city rush hour roads there’s usually a pavement they can escape to in an emergency. In the Dales, they have the choice of fastmoving bumper or stationary dry stone wall.

Changing the topic even more clumsily than usual, I spoke to Neil Hanson, former Tan Hill Inn landlord the other week. Older reader( s) may remember him as the man who persuaded Everest to fit the pub with free double glazing back in the 1980s. He’s written a book, The Inn at the Top, about his time at the pub which is full of interesting anecdotes, including a story about an elderly women who – I’ve always wanted to finish a story with these three words – hated Hannah Hauxwell.