THE organisers of the weekend's Dales Festival of Food and Drink must have watched the rain come down on Tuesday morning with particular satisfaction.

They must also have noted with approval, or at least with a slight sense of schadenfreude, the plight of the rest of the country, which endured typical British bank holiday weather.

That Leyburn enjoyed almost wall-to-wall sunshine from Saturday through to Monday, save for one short, sharp shower on Monday afternoon, was nothing short of miraculous given that the event was being held in a farmer's field rather than the town centre.

Unquestionably the move to the new site was a success. Record-breaking attendances and, despite the event being out-of-town, a busy town centre too.

However, as Spectator was walking around a packed festival site on Monday, he couldn't help thinking what that field, well-draining as it is, would have been like had the dales suffered from the weather experienced by most of the rest of the country.

We hope the organisers will make provision from this year's likely surplus to hire more of the metalled roadway which did such a good job on parts of the site last weekend. It could be indispensable when one year, inevitably, the weather is not so kind.

Dales in Wales

YORKSHIRE Dales Ice-cream it says on the side of the tubs being sold in Darlington Civic Theatre. That's good, the council-owned theatre is supporting local produce - or so you might think.

Turn the tub round and it shows the address of a business called "Yorkshire Dales Ice-cream". In Cardiff.

If Judy Bell of Shepherd's Purse Cheeses had a fight on her hands to produce feta because the EU considered it could be produced only in Greece, what are the red-tapeworms of Brussels going to do about Yorkshire Dales Ice-cream from Wales?

Stuff of legend

THE name may have come down from the wall, but the George Reynolds arena is oviously moving into the realms of Darlington folklore.

Even the Duke of Plazatoro, updating his list of profitable scams in Darlington Operatic Society's current production of The Gondoliers includes a reference to investment in the crisis-hit, and now anonymous, football venue.

Err...a scrapyard

TURN your back on the language for a moment and what do you find - an end of life vehicle facility popping up in the planning applications. Once upon a time, people popped down to the scrapyard for a boot lid or a door handle.