A jewel of the northern coast

Helmsley, Yorkshire

AFTER the man-made majesty of York Minster, meet Mother Nature's equivalent. The eight-mile hike from Helmsley to Rievaulx Abbey and back takes you through a dense, Hobbity sort of forest. The floor is carpeted with wild garlic and the music is provided by cooing gangs of wood pigeons pulling out all the stops. Cool, shady, perfumed and echoing. A cathedral of conifers is a place to treasure.

RIEVAULX is where, way back in the 12th century a band of Cistercian monks decided to hide themselves away from the rest of society and live a godly life given over to prayer, meditation, humility and self-denial.

SELF-denial tends to go in four phases. 1) We will deny ourselves roast beef. 2) How can we deny ourselves roast beef unless we have some roast beef to deny? 3) We will therefore put roast beef on the table but refuse to eat it. 4) Now the roast beef is actually on the table, it's a shame to waste it, innit?

AND so it goes. Somehow, in the pursuit of humility and self-denial, the monks at Rievaulx ended up living in a damn great Abbey finished in gleaming whitewash and running the biggest agro-industrial complex in this end of England. They quickly abandoned their initial veggie diet in favour of tables groaning under meat, mussels, salmon and roast peacock. After a few centuries of the good life, one of the abbots thought it was a bright idea to question Henry VIII's authority and divorce arrangements. Henry duly booted out the monks, stripped the lead off the roof and Rievaulx was largely demolished for its stone. From glorious abbey to a free quarry. Sic transit gloria thingummy.

AND so to Whitby which is one of those places you somehow expect to be better than it really is. This time around, both York and Whitby seemed scruffy, unloved and uncared-for. But further up the coast, the tiny fishing village of Staithes was a revelation. What a cracking little place it is with its seafront pubs and cheerful little cafes. In fact it's such a pretty little find that I absolute forbid you from discussing it with anyone else.

IN the cafe in Staithes we found ourselves in what appeared to be a comedy sketch as three Yorkshire ladies ordered three slices of coble cake, but only two of them with cream, luv, and did they contain nuts, not that she's allergic, she just doesn't like them, and could they have the cakes warmed up just a bit, and they're not proper nuts, Alice, only walnuts, so is that all right? You would not believe three ladies could make such a meal of three bits of cake before even tasting them Over to you, Victoria Wood.

MEANWHILE, out there in the real world of cake-making, what a curious business is this gay "discrimination" case in Ulster where a Christian-owned cake shop is in trouble. The owner refused to make a cake for a gay wedding with two gay iced characters and the slogan: "Support gay marriage." But this is not one of those cases where a trader treats customers unfairly by, for example, refusing a gay couple a hotel room. In this case, the cake-maker would probably have refused to make the cake whether the customer was straight or gay. So where's the discrimination? It seems the cake maker's real offence is that he is not sufficiently enthusiastic about homosexuality.

OUR changing language. The S-word crops up again. Here in Helmsley one deli is offering not merely ingredients but "meal solutions."