LOOK away now if you want funny and uplifting. It’s gloomy, wet and grey outside and I’m back at work, a place where mid-morning gin and tonics – because it is Christmas – and eating the contents of the kids’ selection boxes wearing just your pants is frowned upon.

In a bid to blow away the festive cobwebs, we went for a walk along the track leading from Bolton Castle to Carperby on Sunday. It was blowing a gale and sleeting.

The baby looked at me with disgust as I unbuckled her from her cosy car seat and strapped her into the pushchair. I told her it was character building and I could tell from her tears that she wanted me arrested for neglect. The wife was equally unimpressed, despite my stories about how the route was once the main road up Wensleydale. Could she not picture medieval traders and farmers, huntsman and monks passing along the route as they travelled up and down the dale on their medieval business?

No she could not, apparently.

And what about the evidence of the medieval farming system provided by the lynchets, stackgarths, barn platforms and field boundaries clearly visible beside the track near the castle? Is it not fascinating? Apparently not.

What did they do in medieval times before food banks? A church food bank in Richmond handed out 18,000 free meals in 2013, according to a story this week. Unemployment is about one per cent in Richmondshire, which has a population of about 40,000.

That means there are 400 people out of work, yet 1,300 individuals used the service in the last year.

So presumably as well as the unemployed, those with a job are having to rely on hand-outs to feed themselves and their families.

What a shabby state of affairs.

In other news, I’ve thought long and hard about New Year resolutions. This year I vow to change the battery in my car key fob, a job which will save me at least 15 seconds of pressing, pointing and cussing every day.

Finally, to correct one of the errors in last week’s column, apparently Aldi is a German company and Germany isn’t in Scandinavia, at least not since 1945.