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I am not sure why, and I fear it is related to getting older, but  I have begun to look at churches with deepening fascination. Just before Christmas I was in St Paul's Cathedral to hear my godson sing Evensong with the Worcester College choir. This was one of my finest moments as a godmother, sitting in the candle lit evening, absorbing the monumental space that is St Paul's, listening to the silence and the singing. My godson is a probationer and looked like a tiny candle, his face vivid, above his gown, concentration profound as he sang angelically in the choir stalls.  

Walking out afterwards, craning at the dome, the glitter of gold leaf from hundreds of feet above us was astonishing and exotic, and in its utter magnificence it reminded me of Christmas a few years previously when we were in Venice and went to the Basilica in St Mark's Square for midnight mass on Christmas Eve, and also of a service I attended at Westminster Abbey for Sir John Betjeman who has a stone of  commemoration in Poet's Corner there . These occasions stand out for me as I was lucky enough to experience these vast Cathedrals as part of the congregation rather than as a shuffling tourist.

My more usual church experiences are in Norfolk, where there is rarely anybody else around at all. I do not attend services often, but I love the Norfolk churches for their gaunt beauty and their prevalence in the huge windswept countryside. They are the insignia of Norfolk, the reminder that this was once a hugely important county, rich from wool trade and studded with ports around its 100 mile coast line.

St Margaret's Church in the park of Felbrigg Hall is a favourite of mine, and has, according to Nikolaus Pevsner "a most impressive set of brasses." We have numerous wax crayon brass rubbings on the wall at home which confirm this, done by my children over the years with me takling a more active role than they wanted in their work. My alternative was to wait, freezing in the church for small draughtsmen who were  impervious to turning blue and who would  colour a bit and then wander off to look at  lambs outside. I much preferred to pick up the crayon where they left off.  My  favourite image from  Felbrigg is of Sir Simon de Felbrigg and his wife standing under beautiful ogee canopies (look it up in Matthew Rice's Architectural Primer , it means a kind of arch), and each of them is more or less squashing a pet underfoot. Sir Simon's is a tiny lion which looks more like a 21st century pug and his lady, whose name doesn't seem to matter to anyone, has a sweet puppy with a collar of bells on.

At Blickling, St Andrew's Church also has  wonderful brasses, and here Sir Nicholas Dagworth has his snazzy stripy shoes pressed firmly onto another pet lion. Presumably these lions represent our brave knights on crusade? Frankly, having now read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall , I am inclined to believe that the crusaders may have behaved like today's football hooligans combined with mercenaries in other countries, but I love their medieval branding - the lion looks glorious.

Brass rubbings are one aspect, tomb gazing and gargolye watching are others, and every church from the noble St Peter and St Paul at Salle, to the round towered and ancient St Andrew's at Wickmere  or St Mary's at Itteringham has something special. In September the Norfolk Churches trust holds a sponsored bicycle ride, and that is one of the best ways to discover a favorite church. Meanwhile, set out with a thermos of tea, some chocolate broken biscuit cake and any of the books from the Norfolk Churches web site and make a pilgrimage  picnic tour. And if Norfolk isn't even remotely close, don't be down cast, just start on your own doorstep and do a diffrent county every year. A county a year? What am I saying? There are hundreds of them. Make that a county a month and start tomorrow.