Not a lot of people know this, it's not a particularly well known, but I, James have completed marathons on more than one occasion. Okay, so not that kind of marathon. I'm talking about a TV marathon, where you watch an entire series of something in one sitting. Take, for example, the Sharpe marathon. We watched every episode of Sharpe in one go, that's more than twenty-four hours of Sean Bean killing the French. Brilliant.

Then there was the Lord of the Rings marathon where we watched all nine plus hours of Peter Jackson's movies back to back (the extended versions no less). The Lord of the Rings marathon was less good and we all got bored and fell asleep, I think because Sharpe was a collection of short stories with a beginning, middle and end while Lord of the Rings almost entirely consists of middle. Also, we had all seen all of Lord of the Rings lots of times so it was nothing new. Ben was watching Sharpe for the first time.

Anyway, Ella and I are members of English Heritage which means we get free (as in, we already paid for it) entry to English Heritage sites across the country. On the way to Durham the other day we popped in the Richmond Castle for a quick visit - it's not worth paying £4 each to run around a castle but if it's free then why not pop by? Also, July 30th was our wedding anniversary. We have been married for two years and we wanted to do something to commemorate it. I couldn't get the day off on our anniversary but I could get the day after off. Does anybody remember what happened the day after our wedding? I do, we went to Whitby. So, a trip to Whitby is in order, but come on, we've been to Whitby, several times.

It didn't take long for these thoughts to brew in our minds and the obvious answer pop out. Why not do an English Heritage marathon? We looked at the book of sites and determined that there are way too many. English Heritage takes care of over 400 properties across England. Okay so what about Yorkshire? Still too many? We decided to narrow it down to properties within the North York Moors National Park. That's still a fearsome list (off the top of my head) I can think of three castles (Scarborough, Pickering and Helmsley), three abbeys (Whitby, Byland and Rievaulx) and Mount Grace Priory. The window of opportunity is tight as well, these sites open at 10am and close at 6pm. Some of them are a good hours drive apart. Scarborough is a nightmare to drive through. Some may say visiting all seven of these sites in one day is improbable, even impossible. We had to give it a go.

Having learned nothing from our trip to Durham we got up at 6:30am and left home at 8am. We haven't streamlined the getting up and out process at all. Babies take time to feed and change, that's just the way it is. If we want to get out earlier, we need to get up earlier. It takes two hours to get to Whitby, if all goes well we will be there for 10am, on time for opening. No problem.

St. Mary's Priory, Old Malton

So confident was I in our ability to complete the challenge that I pulled over outside the Royal Oak in Old Malton to take a look at a historic site not on our list. The parish of St. Mary the Virgin is built on and incorporates the ruins of a Gilbertine monastery. The Gilbertines (founded by St. Gilbert) are the only entirely English order and as such were wiped out in the dissolution of the monasteries. Gilbertine houses were usually largely for Nuns with a smaller number of male cannons and were designed so the two would never meet (except when a canon said mass for the nuns). St. Mary's Malton is a rare example of an all male Gilbertine priory.

The western end (front) of the church is the best preserved part of the priory with an entire tower and section of wall remaining. Taking a quick walk around the south side of the church we find that the wall of the church has been built in to and encompasses the arches that once separated the Nave from the Aisle. It is here that it is most obvious that the church is build on the ruins of an older building.

It was only a quick visit and after Ella noted her pleasure that the Royal Oak had an oak tree growing prominently outside, we departed and continued towards Pickering. As fortune would have it, this weekend (4th-5th of August) Pickering is having it's annual Pickering Traction Engine Rally. We sat in the already hot sun and watched as the workmen chose this moment to stop the traffic and erect a sign over the road. Eventually we got going again, the A169 over the moors is a beautiful drive and he moors were looking especially nice today but it always takes so long to get across them. We arrived in Whitby at 10:30am.

Whitby Abbey

I have written about Whitby Abbey before, it is a stunning place in a great location with easy access to fish and chips and lots of history. St. Wilfrid, who came to the Synod of Whitby in 664 would probably not approve of the visitor centre where a fictional monk by the name of William moans a lot about having to go to mass and pray. Our visit was to be quick so we missed the visitor centre and looked at the abbey ruins and fell in love with them all over again.

We came to Whitby the day after our wedding and we were also here in February for a last break before the baby. Now we are here again for our second anniversary, it's a beautiful day and we teach Leona about the different styles of arch. She won't remember of course but neither does Ella. There's a bench at the end of the lake that's only there for taking pretty photos and we sat there for a moment to enjoy the sun and give Leona a change and a feed.

Those of you who have been to Whitby (or those of you who have read Dracula) will know that the route from the Abbey to the Harbour includes the famous 199 steps. We didn't attempt the steps with the pram, instead, we took the donkey track which runs alongside, getting a pram down there is no mean feat. Ella carried Leona separately for minimum risk taking lest the pram escape my grip. We made it to the bottom for my favourite part of the day... er... Whitby Jet shopping.

Whitby is famous for Jet, formed from dead wood over thousands of years and carved in to pretty shapes for girls to yearn for. Ella has had one eye on the jet shops every time we have been to Whitby and what with it's association with the day after our wedding it seemed an appropriate anniversary gift. The problem is, the people who carve Jet have two styles: Victorian (in which the jet is a polished oval shape in a large ring) or Novelty (in which the jet is shaped like a Whitby Abbey or a frog). Ella loves the novelty things but doesn't want one as a piece of jewellery. She also doesn't want old lady jewellery. This presents a problem. An hour passed. Eventually we located a necklace that Ella liked, one that looked more like jet and less silver with black bits.

We hoofed our way back up the donkey track, James feeling more donkey like the higher we got until we reached the top. We passed through the Abbey grounds again where we realised that Leona was minus her hat. Her two in one (reversible) pink hat that godmother Katy bought. It must be somewhere down in Whitby. Daddy must have lost it. We drove down to the little car park down by the harbour where you can never park and Ella slowly drove the car around in circles while I ran up the street past all the jet shops. In the shop where we purchased Ella's jet I asked if they have found pink baby hat (I thought it likely as we spent a long time in that shop). The answer was no, but a man entering the shop overheard me and said that he had seen such a hat outside a shop farther up the street and had thought it was for sale. I ran back up the street to find Leona's hat hanging on the end of a sign outside a shop, I picked it up, painfully aware that nothing about my person made me look like I should be picking up babies hats, and ran back to the car.

Madonna House

Time, I am sorry to say, was not looking good. The original plan was to arrive in Whitby at 9am, buy Jet and get to Whitby Abbey for opening at 10am, quick visit, leave Whitby at 10:30am... we left Whitby at 12:30. Ella said she didn't mind how the challenge went as long as she got to Rievaulx Abbey. We decided to drop the castles from the itinerary.

Our next stop was the Madonna House community in Robin Hoods Bay. A visit to our friends at Madonna House is always a pleasure and it is wonderful to visit a living religious community living so close to the departed one in Whitby. They were pleased to meet Leona and we were pleased to have a cup of tea. I wondered where Charlie was but forgot to ask, I hope he is okay.

We also spent a few moments in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel. As wonderful as Whitby Abbey is, the small chapel at Madonna House has something better. Christ himself is physically there. You can't really better that.

We would have loved to linger longer at Madonna house but time was already drifting away and we had to move on. We were given a tip to avoid driving through Whitby but something went wrong and we ended up driving through Whitby anyway which is nice because you go over the new harbour bridge and get good views but bad because you are rapidly running out of time to visit abbeys.

As we drove over the moors we realised we could hear a strange sound, we looked around and realised the boot of the car was open, by some miracle despite driving uphill the contents had not spewed on the road and we still had our pram, camera and Whitby Jet. Phew.

Parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul Pickering

It's not an English Heritage site and it's not an Abbey but despite pressing time we decided to pop in to the Parish Church in Pickering. Someone once told us it was worth going in there to see the medieval frescoes, that someone was right.

For some reason we've stopped painting on church walls. When Fr. Massie was planning the redecoration of St. Joseph's he laughed at my suggestion that we paint the wall around the altar blue with clouds and angels Sistine chapel style. We laughed as his suggestion we have it painted green. The green works, but angels would have been better, especially ones with swords.

The main thing I miss about paintings on the walls of Churches is the catechetical value. Standing in the nave of the church in Pickering you can't help but ask questions, who is that? what is he doing? There are so many saints I had never heard of until I went to Italy, yet here they are, in Pickering of all places. Why are they not to be found in my parish church? I feel robbed. Some day I should sneak in to St. Joseph's in the dead of night and paint my angels. Just as soon as I learn to paint that is.

We grabbed some lunch in Pickering. Coopland's Chicken Bake and a Cherry Danish. Classic. Time ticking ever forward we now had a tough decision to make as we drove towards Helmsley.

Byland Abbey

If you are ever travelling through the moors you might find it handy to remember this simple rule: driving from Pickering to Helmsley always takes twice as long as you expect. By the time we got to Helmsley the clock was frighteningly close to 4pm. Two hours. Two abbeys. Ella really wanted to see Revaulx so should we skip Byland? Our appetite for risk coupled with our blind optimism and our commitment to the challenge gave us no choice. Byland, here we come.

On a map, Byland isn't too far from Helmsley. In real life though it seemed to take forever to drive there. The winding roads are such slow going and the signs say 2 miles and then four hours later they say 1 1/2 miles. We weren't even sure it was worth it, Byland is barely there we were told. The west wall with it's half hole for a rose window is all that remains. Well, we disagree. There is lots left.

Unfortunately, today it was closed. It's only open at peak times (Thursday-Monday I think). Still, we got a good photo from the entrance and we get to remember the tale of Bishop Wimund, the pirate bishop who became a "seafaring warlord adventurer" and lived out his days at Byland after being captured, blinded and castrated.

It was probably for the best that Byland was closed, we might have been tempted to stay too long, as it was we were soon on our way to our final abbey.

Rievaulx Abbey

The final few grains were slipping through the hourglass as we drove from Byland, through Helmsley, to Rievaulx Abbey. Ella would have killed me if we'd missed it (at the very least I would have expected a light maiming) but here we were. 5pm. One hour to go. Rievaulx. Home of St. Aelred.

St. Aelred of Rievaulx was abbot at a time when life for Cistercian monks was hard. The monks spent most of their time in their cells reading and praying and speaking to one another at the times when they came together in the Church was discouraged. Aelred changed all that, he said that friendship between the monks was important and afforded them a better vision of friendship with God. Naturally, modern day 'scholars' think he was gay.

The car park at Rievaulx was a scare and a half. Parking at Richmond on Saturday cost 50p for an hour. In Whitby I paid £1.50 for 2 hours. The price at Rievaulx? £6. Flat fee. I almost fell over. Nevertheless, we had come this far and Ella was not about to miss Rievaulx Abbey. I went in to the ticket office to ask for change and they told me that on entry to the abbey the car parking fee is refunded, furthermore, if you are an English Heritage member (as we are) entry is free anyway so parking is free. A sign explaining this on the car park ticket machine would be nice.

The abbey buildings are beautiful and quite a remarkable amount of the structure remains. Most of the south end of the church (liturgical east) still stands. The layout of the church and cloister is identical to the layout of Durham cathedral, the chapter house is in the same place and the same shape. Of course, the Roman/Norman arches are replaced with Gothic ones and it's got more of a girly french feel about it but it's beautiful all the same.

Cue ad nauseum questions about why we don't build them like this anymore. People seem to prefer sports halls these days.

We escaped the abbey under warning that the abbey car park closed at six and drove slooooowly in to Helmsley because the Cyclists were cycling two by two (hurrah). We parked up in Helmsley and just enjoyed being there (I like Helmsley) for a moment while we changed Leona and prepared for the drive home. Said drive was fairly uneventful save for the fact that it didn't mark the end of our day. We picked up Ella's mum and brother on our way in to Hull and headed to Hedon for the last Morris dance of the Green Ginger season at the Shakespeare in Hedon.

Did we succeed in our challenge? Well, we certainly had a good day and seeing so much of our regions christian heritage in one day definitely helps see it in a new light. We missed an abbey, albeit a closed one, Mount Grace Priory (which is beautiful). I'd love to try again sometime, to visit in one day all the Abbeys and Castles in the North Yorkshire Moors. Is it possible? We'll all just have to wait and see.

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.