You might expect a day trip to York takes a full day. Not so. Kathleen Lundquist and husband Gary met us at 2pm and we went through till 6pm. Mark Shea decided to try and beat the record by getting there for 2.30pm and leaving at 5pm. Lightening visits to York are becoming our speciality. Being jetlagged and having stayed up until 2am the night before Mark was understandably tired and had a bit of a lie in. At 8am Ella woke me up and told me it was unfair to keep our guest waiting downstairs while we slept and insisted that I get up. I got up and went downstairs to find (as I expected) that Mark was decidedly not up. I went back to Ella who told me "he is probably in his room reading while he waits for us to get up". Nonsense, thouht I. Still, a nagging wife can acheive many things and on this particular occasion she acheived getting me to go downstairs and make her a cup of tea.

When Mark did awake several hours later it turned out he had indeed been reading a book, briefly, at 8am. He had gone back to sleep. If only I had shared that fate... Leona had other ideas. Ella and I played some Zelda four swords and watched Friends (to brush up on our American) and when Mark got up we headed on over to York.

We parked by the River and Mark told us about William Cowper who drowned himself because of Calvinism. Apparently he thought he was damned so he decided to get damned quicker by killing himself... no I don't get it either. Anyway it's supposed to be Ella and I showing him York and there he is telling us about it. We walked around past Clifford's Tower and then on past Fairfax House which somebody told me once has some kind of Catholic link. I haven't time to look in to it now but this page seems to back up the idea.

Next stop, The Shambles. The Shambles are a very old street dating from the time of Maragret Clithrow which is lucky because that is where she lived. You may recall the controvery about the Shambles (where did Margaret Clitherow live?) so as well as going in to the shrine we also went in to the other house and I bravely asked if we could see the alleged priesthole which the nice man in Past Images kindly allowed us to go and look at the hole behind the fireplace which certainly could be a priesthole but to be honest it could also just be a hole. The controversy continues.

After The Shambles we headed towards the Minster. York Minster is not my least Minster/Cathedral (I still think it's bloody good) and today I liked it a little more because the sun was just right in the sky to light the stained glass beautifully.

Working as usual from the west end we spotted the Cathedral in the shrine of St. Cuthbert. You can see how we might have missed it. Font-tastic it is not.

When you think about the font in Durham (photos here and here) this is shocking. Also, in the background you can see another modern incursion...

Apparently named the "Semaphore Saints" these sculptures state that "Christ is here" which he was before the reformation but now you have to go down the road to St. Wilfrid's where he's been relegated to a sidechapel. Oops. Did I say that out loud? We wandered through the Nave and along the North Transept past some more lovely windows to the chapter house which is stunning but, I maintain, pointless. In the entrance to the chapter house is a statue of Mary which I think is really lovely but I can never get a good photo (it's just too dark). After the chapter house we worked our way around to the east end and looked at the choir.

When we arrived the choir were in the choir so we could hear the choir but we couldn't see the choir because the choir were there. After the choir left the choir we could go in and we could see the choir but we couldn't hear the choir.

The Choir was destroyed by fire in the 1800's and what we see today is a Victorian replacement. It lacks the medieval crazyness of the Choir at Exeter Cathedral or Beverley Minster but I really like wooden things so I still like it. Leona made some unhappy baby noises and an involved looking man looked around so Mark Shea said "future chorister" and he said (in a stern unimpressed voice) with just a little practise. On the way out we caught sight of Leona's two favourite animals the Lion and the Giraffe stitched on to kneelers...

We headed out of the Minster and made our way past St. Wilfrid's and Gray's Solicitors (they visited my blog once you know...) and on through York back to the car. We got there at 5pm. On target. York visited in 2.5 hours. We never walked any walls but you see plenty of those from the car which is still good. We had to get back to Hull because Mark wanted to be at the place where he was to give his talk 45 minutes in advance. Hah. We got to Hull with scarcely time for some fish and chips. We introduced Mark to American Chip Spice. Apparently they don't have American Chip Spice in America. Ludicrous. He must just not get out much.

It's no secret that Ella and I like to get around and see the sights of England... our recent days out to Richmond, Durham, Whitby and the Abbeys of North Yorkshire etc are well documented. Here's our dirty secret: The nearby city of York however has somehow escaped our reach... until now.

A recent blog entry on a visit to Exeter Cathedral attracted the attention of Kathleen Lundquist, a blogger on the Intentional Disciples blog alongside Mark Shea and also a Musician. She was soon to visit England and was after tips so I sent a few emails, checked with some friends and knocked together a Tips for Visiting England blog entry.

Today was the day that Kathleen and husband Gary descended on York. Ella and I decided to go along and try to help them find the sights (although, as I say, our knowledge of York is limited). Thanks to our marvellous railway system the Lundquists couldn't get to York until 1ish so by the time they found their B&B and met us outside York Minster it was 2pm. Well, 2.15pm actually... we were late. We also brought Michelle and her daughter Jessica along for the ride. Jessica knows more history than we do (she's a history nerd) and Michelle knows more about Margaret Clitherow than we do (she's a saints nerd) so they should come in handy.

2.15pm... did I mention Kathleen and Gary had a train out booked at 9am the next morning. Our car parking was only paid up until 6pm. This was their one shot four hour chance at seeing as much of York as possible. How do you see York in four hours??

Well to start with, you don't see anything on an empty stomach. Kathleen and Gary hadn't eaten since their marathon train journey (it's two hours by car, they had to catch three trains). We wandered away from the minster back to a market square type area where there were proper English Morris Men and Garland Dancers (handy that, because there isn't usually such things) to watch while munching on a sandwich. Ella told us all about the Morris Men (because she's a Morris Nerd).

Time a'tickin we decided to prioritise. Kathleen and Garry's main requests were the Shambles and the Minster so we began with The Shambles on the basis that the shrine of Margaret Clitherow might close earlier than the minster. There in the Shambles we hit upon a controversy... where did Margret Clitherow live?

Was it at Number 10? - Wikipedia seems to think so, as does a plaque (laminated paper) in the entrance of the building which unconfidently states "claimed to be the home of Margaret Clitherow". I found a page on yahoo that says the shopkeeper at Number 10 will tell the tale of her being "crushed to death in the cellar". We know she didn't meet her end in the cellar at home so perhaps the Number 10 claim originated with an excitable shop keeper. However I also found an InfoBritain page which claims Number 10 to be the only house in the Shambles with a priest hole. If that is true, it would lend weight to the claim for Number 10.

Was it at Number 36? - The Roman Catholic Shrine of Margaret Clitherow occupies Number 36, the rather more official looking wooden plaque (none of your laminated tat here) announces that this was "The house of Margaret Clitherow". However, my cynical mind has questions... I can't help but think that if this were the house of Margaret Clitherow there would be a priest hole and if there were a priest hole it would be a feature. Maybe I am wrong, maybe there is a priest hole but it's too awkwardly placed to share with visitors.

Personally, the version of events I find most believable is this... I expect nobody can know for sure which house was the one Margaret Clitherow lived in - if there are records then they might have renumbered the houses. The good people of the Catholic Women's League who bought the house for the Shrine knew this and were happy just to have a house in the Shambles. Then I am guessing some well meaning but mistaken parishioner assumed it was her actual house and had the wooden sign made (maybe they made it themselve) which continues to mislead people (perhaps if there is no supporting evidence it should be removed). The other house, number 10, by virtue of the priest hole (if one exists) has a better claim and their sign with it's "probably" is more realistic. Besides, everybody knows real saints advertise themselves via cheap laminated tat. I wouldn't be surprised however to find that number 10 is/was not the only house with a priest hole. If Margaret Clitherow was as popular locally as the story suggests then I wouldn't be surprised to find her friends helping her to hide priests. In any case, the question wants sorting because it's not really fair on pilgrims to be potentially mislead by either location. If we don't know then the sign should say so.

We prayed briefly in the shrine and then headed back out through the shambles towards the minster.

As an aside... the Shambles is the name given to many streets of butchers throughout England. Named, so they say, after the shelves hung outside to display meat. Unrefrigerated meat displayed uncovered outside? It's a wonder anybody lived long enough to be martyred...

So, the Minster...

Oops no. You get one more aside before the minster itself. Not a lot of people know this but the Roman Emperor Constantine (yes that Constantine) was in York with his father (Constantius) died. The troops proclaimed Constantine the Emperor then and there though he actually had to go through a bit of messing around to make it official. Next to the minster you can see a statue of Constantine (Ella and Michelle said it looked like Fr. Massie) and an authentic Roman column direct from the great hall of the Roman garrison where Constantine was proclaimed Emperor.

So, now, the Minster...

York Minster is famous as the largest gothic cathedral in the world. It's a shame I didn't know this when we arrived of I might have said so. Not that you need to know that kind of thing - who cares if it's the largest. It's large and you can see that for yourself when you are there. We entered by the south door which is a bit odd when you are used to entering by the west door. Gary headed down to the crypt/undercroft and we took Kathryn around to the west end.

We always do Cathedrals from west to east (liturgically - sometimes the west end isn't actually in the west). There's a sense in which the Cathedral describes a journey often with the Baptismal font at the west and the high altar in the east. York Minster doesn't have the font in the west end (in fact I don't recall seeing a font at all) but we began there all the same in the Nave. York minster has the widest nave in the world (I am told) and is slightly odd in that there is a lot of glass very high up. This gives quite a strange lightness in the ceiling but it's not so light down below.

The nave is filled with modern chairs. Here's the thing... seats and pews in Churches is quite a modern invention. So find me a traditionalist who want's everybody to sit on the floor... Anyway, there's a few unexplained things in the nave. There's a dragon sticking out high up for no apparent reason and there's a fairly new looking chair (throne?). The former they say is possibly part of a medieval mechanism for lifting a font cover (the font is long gone) while the latter I am guessing might be for when the Bishop of York want's to sit where people can see him. There's also a chapel to St. Cuthbert (yay) with an image of Cuthbert's vision of Christ in glory in which Our Lord seems to be surrounded by modern soldiers and laser beams (what the?).

We made our way to the front of the nave, the pulpit is curious in that it is really quite small and light looking - perched as it is on slender wooden columns. Quite a change from the monolithic marble affairs we grew accustomed to in italy.

Next up, the North Transept (the transepts are the two arms of the Cathedral). There's a beautiful astronomical clock here in honour of airmen operating from Yorkshire in the second world war, here we find the entrance to the Chapter House. The Chapter House is a bizarre structure really, so much size and splendour for what is essentially a meeting room. It is, I confess, a stunning room and yet I cannot help but think... why bother?

We came out of the chapter house and were about to admire the screen when an man in that curious attire formerly reserved for black gospel choirs but recently seen adorning the guides in our nations Cathedrals asked us to step back. We watched as a large group of well behaved silent choristers filed past two by two in to the choir. Evensong began and we listened to their singing as we admired the screen. Unlike many Cathedrals the screen at York Minster is of stone construction with a row of impressive statues.

We couldn't see the second half of the Cathedral - it was closed off for evensong. We would have to wait. Kathleen and Gary had only limited time in York and as beautiful as the singing was, we didn't want to spend an hour stood there listening. We decided to head out of the Minster and return later. Where to go?

We decided to go and check out St. Wilfrid's, the main Catholic Church in York (after all, it was the feast of St. Wilfrid on Friday). I was immensely upset about what I saw inside and I will not spoil this otherwise upbeat blog entry by writing about it here. It is an embarrassment to English Catholicism and our Diocese that our American friends had to find things as they were.

On the plus side for St. Wilfrid's, it was open. There's huuuge respect from me for that. So many Churches are locked these days. Good work.

We left the scene and walked to Bootham Bar explaining to Kathleen that the 'gates' are streets and the 'bars' are gates. We climbed Bootham Bar (pram and all - we ain't no wimps) to find at the top an excellent anachronistic electronic quiz thing where you virtually race around the walls of the city by answering questions about the history of local sites. It was great. We walked the stretch of wall from Bootham Bar to Monk Bar which is the stretch that runs around the Minster. It's bizarre because you are have the large gardens of the houses surrounding the minster on one side and the small gardens of houses outside the city walls on he other side. The wall snakes it's way past the Robin Hood tower (how do you even begin to explain to Americans that Robin Hood was a Yorkshireman (maybe). We came down from the wall at Monk Bar.

After that we walked back from Monk Bar to the minster for part two. The eastern end of the minster is the best bit, it's where you find the choir, the Bishops throne and the high altar. Sadly there was a fire in the minster in the mid 1800's which destroyed all the choir stalls so most of the wooden furnishings (which are of particular interest to myself) are a bit bland. The victorians didn't have the same inclination toward creativity in design that the medievals did. Still, the lady chapel and the east window are spectacular... now thats a reredos.

They also have quite a good collection of gaudy elizabethan tombs...

After the minster Kathleen hinted that perhaps 6pm was time to look for food. We wandered the streets of York until we found a Pizza Hut where we got... um... pizza. While everybody ordered I had to run down to the car park and buy more parking time because we were only paid up until 6pm. We had good eats (lost of people liking spicy meaty pizza) and after food was over it was nearly time to head our separate ways.

Rather than risk Kathleen and Gary getting lost in York we decided to take them for a walk down to Cliffords Tower (so they had seen everything) and then drive them back around to their hotel. This we did and as I dropped them off Kathleen gave me one of her CDs. This one is better than the samples I heard on the site - still kind of high pitched for my liking but with a hint of gregorian style and all about Christmas. Ella really likes it.

We had a great time and I hope Kathleen and Gary did too. We learned lot's about York that we never knew and I look forward to next time we go again.

(and yes, we did somehow totally forget to do a group photo, Ella is livid with me...)

Ella and I have visited a fair few religious buildings this year. Our St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More pilgrimage took us to St Charles in Hull, St Mary's Beverley and Beverley Minster. Our practice trip to Durham took us to Durham Cathedral and our North Yorkshire Moors Challenge took us to Malton Priory, Whitby Abbey, Pickering Parish Church, Byland Abbey and Rievaulx Abbey. I visited Exeter Cathedral when I was a student here, quite a few times. It was nice to wander through on my way to do my weekly shopping.

The first thing you notice about Exeter Cathedral when compared with basically every other Cathedral in England is the positioning of the towers. Every English Cathedral I have seen has three towers, one large central tower and two smaller towers. Often the large central tower is missing as on Beverley Minster and often (as at York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, Durham Catherdral, etc) it is present. Never have I seen the two towers halfway along the building except in Exeter.

I took the photo above from the top floor of Debenhams over the rooftops of Exeter. You can see how the two towers, are halfway along the buildings length. The roof running in between contains the longest vaulted ceiling in England. Why so long? Because unlike other English Cathedrals, the roof runs all the way from one end to the other.

The towers... the Norman towers... the beautiful Norman towers. They are fine fine examples of Norman architecture. No clever elegant stonework here, just brute force rock upon rock piled high in to the sky.

But wait, do my eyes deceive me? I seem to see a gothic window. Did the Normans get ahead of themselves? No. The two Norman towers were part of an earlier Cathedral (oh how I wish it were still there) which was demolished to make way for the new Cathedral. The towers form the trancepts of the new Cathedral and the stonemasons with their newfangled modern techniques punched a hole in the tower wall for a gothic archway with rose(ish) window. The result looks a little out of place on the outside but adds light inside (which is a good thing).

The next thing to notice about the Cathedral is the magnificent screen on the west face. Rows and rows of statues adorn this side of the Cathedral. Sadly, many are in a sorry state of repair. Not the fault of the Cathedral staff, no, the fault of Oliver Cromwell and his iconoclastic chums. Those fellows were anti-imagery but also rather lazy so the higher up statues are unscathed. Unfortunately the lower down ones such as these angels took a beating...

Photography inside the Cathedral is forbidden. Not totally forbidden like in Durham, just forbidden unless you pay for a photography pass forbidden. I paid one shiny pound for a photography pass which is the best pound I have spent in ages. Note to Exeter Cathedral: I would have paid £5. Gladly. Exeter Cathedral has the least imposing donation request system I have seen, a kindly lady gave us a leaflet and invited us to make a donation after our visit if we enjoyed the Cathedral. Given the number of times I have visited for free as a student we donated gladly and in hindsight I feel bad for not giving more. Maybe next time.

The level of light inside the Cathedral is superb. What Norman architechture acheives with materials Gothic makes up for in spaces. The Gothic arch allows for gigger gaps in the masonry and more light shines through. With no towers to support the walls of Exeter cathedral can be lighter still. The result is a space that is almost as well lit as being outdoors.

We began by walking along the south aisle and enjoying some of the windows. Most of the stained glass in Exeter Cathedral sadly isn't very old, smashed as it was by German bombs in the Second World War. Still, the replacements were (fortunately) replaced before the madness of modernity and are quite tasteful including St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Gregory. Always good to see Popes in Anglican Cathedrals.

One of windows shows Exeter Cathedral being offered up to Christ during the bombing of Exeter...

In the south trancept there are some huuge organ pipes:

Heading across to the north trancept we find the Exeter Clock. The clock is really cool:

The oldest parts of the clock date from 1484, the blue fleur-de-lys goes around once every twenty-four hours. The inner circle shows the phases of the moon and it's position in the lunar cycle. The upper part I am told is newer and shows the minutes. Medieval clocks from 1484 are fantastic.

Below the clock in the north trancept is a temporary structure. Usually, these are modern art type things but today it's the bible room. Somebody has built a plywood room and then taken all the pages from a bible and pasted them on the walls. You might think a room big enough to house the entire Bible on it's walls would be massive but it isn't, it's actually quite small and makes you think you could probably read it in a day.

As in any Cathedral, most of the money has been spent on the choir of the Cathedral, the bit the pheasants didn't have access too. In this part of the Cathedral the ceiling is still painted and is amazing:

Would that it were all painted. Also painted are some stunning tombs:

Leona, of course, liked the Lion:

We had a great time exploring this marvelous building. I could go on for hours, I havent't mentioned the organ or the screen below it with the paintings and the detail of the pulpit or the chapel of St. James which was bombed during the war and now has a particularly modern but still very exciting stained glass window of St. George slaying the Dragon which I haven't shown you a picture of... oh go on then...

How to sum up? The raw strength of the Norman towers with the magesty of the gothic body of the Cathedral makes for an odd combination. It's not particularly tall and towering, it even looks a little stumpy from the outside. Still, I wouldn't have it any other way. It's a great Cathedral and it's wonderful to see something a little different.

Oh, and don't forget to have Devon cream teas in the refectory. Deeeeee... licious.

It's been some time now since Canon Michael Loughlin approached me after a Faith Forum meeting and said simply: "James, you need to go to Durham". I was rather perplexed at the time. He said it in a manner that seemed to suggest a shadowy figure waiting there with an urgent message for me to go and collect at once, I wondered why I was to go an enquired as such. "Because it's a beautiful place" he replied. He went on to tell me a great many things I have since forgotten, including one thing I have not forgotten, there is some poetry by Caedmon to be seen.

Fast-forward a few months to the present day. Ben and Hannah are due to be married soon in Exeter. Ella and I are due to go... with Leona. There are hundreds of miles of driving to be done and between us we have driven to, um, York?

So! A practice run is in order. A days driving in the region of going to Exeter is required. We decided to go somewhere for the day, somewhere about half the distance of Exeter away. I know what you're thinking... Birmingham isn't the most scenic destination in the world. That's what we thought, but Durham, I had heard, is very nice.

We decided to leave early for maximum time at tuther end, the alarm went off at 6:30am and up we got. Of course, Leona happened and Ella happened and James happened and betwixt them all we left the house at about 8am. We were hoping to be up and out by seven (ha!). Our first port of call was Asda, we have been tyring of our CD collection and we decided to get some new ones for the journey. We picked up Employment by the Kaiser Chiefs and the best of Electric Light Orchestra. We were hoping to pick up one of those cassette with a wire on things that let you listen to your CD walkman in the car but Asda had none. No matter, we'll pick one up at some services somewhere.

The queue in Asda was the first sign of things going wrong. I spurned the longer queue for the shorter one and got stuck behind a woman who conversed with the checkout operator for aaaages. When I finally got through it we fuelled the car up for 93p at Asda. Asda has one of those automatic petrol stations where you pay by card at the pump, minimum spend £7. Five minutes later I had £6.89 worth of fuel in, the pump was nearly empty and took for-ever to get to £7. At this point I was fairly sure today was going to acheive 'one of those days' status. Finally, I was able to pull the car up to another pump and finish fuelling. By some miracle I remembered to reset the odometer as we left Asda so we would have a reasonable idea of how far we had travelled. We discussed topping up the oil but decided we were already running late so let's leave it. Five minutes later we were pulled up on the roadside topping up the oil.

We finally left Hull at 8:30am, it had taken 30minutes to buy two CDs and some petrol. We were on our way. I was driving to begin with and Ella sat to my left with a notebook writing down all the things we had forgotten so we will remember them when we go to Exeter. Time passed, as it does, the A63 turned in to the M62 and I managed to spot the junction with the A1 and avoid accidentally going to Manchester. Before you (or Ella, as it happened) could say "do you think we still have time to go to Richmond?" I took the turning and headed for Richmond.

Richmond is farther from the A1(M) than it looks on the map, but we got there in the end. We plunged in to a maze of narrow badly labeled streets, we headed down a one way street (in the correct direction) only to meet a 'give way to oncoming traffic' sign. At the bottom end of the street no entry signs were conspicuously absent. We couldn't see the castle anywhere (the houses on either side being mere feet away) and we found ourselves driving alongside the river swale and then drove up a steep hill and around a one way system several times. Parking was 'Disc Zone' whatever that means and Ella got very stressed, were were all ready to shake the dust from our feet when we spotted a short stay car park and dove in. 50p for an hour. With no intention of being in Richmond more than 30 minutes we paid and walked up hill towards the castle which we had finally managed to spot.

Once your are out of the car and on foot Richmond is a lovely place, little winding streets lead through to the market square which is teeming with old ladies tottering around buying fruit and veg and the like. You climb the hill to the Castle and once you are there it's, well, it's Norman.

The Normans have a great way of building. None of your flying buttress malarkey. The keep at Richmond castle is amazing, there's a reason it's lasted since the 12th century. It has walls 11 feet thick, it's 100 feet high. They hadn't invented clever perspective in those days, when you visit Italy they have buildings designed to look bigger than they are through clever use of geometric designs that get smaller as you go up. There are no tricks in Norman architecture, it looks big because it is big. They didn't know how else to do it.

Our visit to Richmond Castle was a flying one, we climbed the keep, we saw the Robin Hood tower and Scollands Hall, we popped in to the chapel (inside the Robin Hood Tower). Religion was not a top priority in Richmond Castle, the chapel is tiny. This photo of Ella at the top of the keep shows how chunky everything is.

Our run around the castle complete we headed down to the car, passing the hilariously named 'Loin King' (they sell burgers) on the way. We also noticed that Richmond has custom dustbins with 'Richmond' written on them. If they can afford such frivolity perhaps they could invest in some signs that say "if you are here to see the castle please drive this way and park here". Then people would know.

We got back in the car and continued toward 'A1(M) THE NORTH Scotch Corner'. It wasn't long before we beheld the sign for Durham. We followed it. Here began the next mistake. Ella's maiden name is Haswell. Near Durham is a village by the name of Haswell. Our mission was to visit it. Unfortunately (and this is difficult to explain) James got it in to his head that the way to Haswell was to take exit of the A1 to Durham, drive through Durham and then find the legendary Haswell on the other side. After we had traversed Durham we realised our mistake. Haswell is on the opposite side of the A1 to Durham, back through Durham we went, back to the A1 and all the way over the other side to, well, Ella took over here. James and his memory had gotten tiresome so Ella resorted to reading a map and telling him where to go. It worked really well, Ella can read maps when she tries and we made it. Boldly going where Ella's Dad had failed to find before.

The villiage of Haswell near Durham is a funny place, it's got that faded splendor thing going on more usually associated with seaside towns. We found the Haswell Pharmacy, the Haswell Post Office, a poster inviting us to "come along to our Haswell fun days". We saw a memorial to the men of Haswell who died in the great war. We even saw a Haswell SureStart center. There's a pub called Oddfellows that had a decidedly odd fellow in it and we decided to steer clear (especially what with the baby and all).

After Haswell we headed back in to Durham proper to finally see the Cathedral. We wern't sure where to park and eventually we parked in 'Riverside' car park for £5 for 3+ hours. Ella carefully loaded the pram with everything we need while James carefully locked the car door...

...James quietly wondered to himself why the dashboard lights were still on when the door was locked. Then it dawned. The keys were still in the ignition. Bummer. I had locked us out of the car, if 'one of those days' status was ever in doubt it was now confirmed. We phoned the AA (Ella is a member) and they said they could be up to two hours. Two hours! I had officially ruined our day in Durham. No Cathedral visit for us! I would have stayed with the car while Ella went to have fun but Ella is the AA member with the AA card so she had to be with the car. Here, James puts a brave face on it. I am crying inside.

I went for a wander and found a very nice man in The Gates shopping centre who said he might know a man who might be able to open the car. He went to find said man but unfortunately our car is too modern and not one of the ones he can do. Ella said we should console ourselves with food so I took a wander down and got some Chicken Royale meals from Burger King. I saw a girl with high heels on get her heel stuck in a cobble stone which was a very funny sight indeed. The AA man came sooner than expected and opened the car in no time with two plastic wedges and a length of bendy wire. It was disturbingly easy. We were finally free to go and spend the day in Durham, after all, it was only 3:30pm, the day was just beginning.

We (finally) left the car park and as we crossed the bridge over the river Wear we got our first glimpse of the Cathedral high above the water. Anybody whose been to Exeter should recognise the trademark Norman towers.

We climbed a hill through the streets of Durham to the Cathedral and it was well worth it. Durham Cathedral is also Norman and is awesome. The two towers at the western end are very similar to the Norman towers of Exeter Cathedral (and are just as awesome). Inside, Normans demonstrate their remarkable ability to, for want of a better phrase, make things as they are. The huge stone pillars ooze huge stone pillar-ness. The arches are Arches. Did I mention the huge stone columns. Overhead, one of the oldest extant wholly stone roofs in europe floats effortlessly on pre-gothic gothic arches.

It get's better, behind the high altar in the east end of the Cathedral lays St. Cuthbert's tomb. St. Cuthbert is the St. Patrick of the North. People from Yorkshire should drink beer every St. Cuthbert's day. Not only that, but at the other end lays St. Bede. The only English Doctor of the Church. A formidable pair. We prayed before each tomb before taking a walk in the cloister.

The cloister is the bit you should all recognise from the first two Harry Potter films. It's the place where Malfoy calls Hermionie a Mudblood. It's hard to imagine it as a film set when you are there but it has that quality all cloisters share.. you want one. Leona was getting tetchy so we took her for a change and Ella fed her while we had a cup of tea in the refectory. We had a look in the bookstore where we found a book with the title "Catholic and Loving it!", Ella wanted a badge for her collection so we popped to the gift shop and picked one up.

Unfortunately by now it was time to head back. We missed the Treasures of Cuthbert exhibition because it closed at 4:30pm. We had a quick peek at Durham Castle (and I mean quick) and then headed back to the car. On the way back to the car we resumed the mission to find a cassette adaptor for playing the CD walkman through the car stero. No chance. We even ventured in to Waitrose which failed us entirely on the adaptor but we bought some very exciting Durham Brewery Beer in several flavours: St. Cuthbert, Cloister, Evensong, Benediction and Temptation. Temptation is 10% and I don't hold out much hope for the taste.

Ella did the driving home, we stopped in several services on route to see if they had the cassette adaptor but to no avail. We listened to Classic FM instead, Leona sleeps to it. Eventually we reached Sainsburys in Hessle just close to where I work. They sold me the adaptor I required along with a single yellow pepper and a copy of Love.Angel.Music.Baby by Gwen Stefani. I hopped in the car and excitedly plugged in the CD player. As we only had time for on song we decided to start with Electric Light Orchestra. Final Insult: The CD Player was broken and wouldn't work. All our adapter hunting was for naught.

To sum up though, we had a fab time travelling 300 miles which is the distance to Exeter so we know we can make the wedding. We saw an awesome Norman Castle and Cathedral and we had an adventure (especially when locked out of the car). Ella saw the (allegedly) family estate and a good time was had by all.

We never did see any poetry by Caedmon though... people, you need to go to Durham.