SURVIVED THE HORDES AT CHESHIRE OAKS OUTLET CENTRE

A great Christmas day, a bit over board on food but i guess that is par for the course and the evening just flew by but we must have needed a rest and we didn't really all gather until gone midday. A much lighter breakfast and we headed off to Cheshire Oaks at Ellesmere Port, the crowds were horrendous, the surrounding area was covered in cars parked on every bit of roadside grass and we like many parked at M&S and walked. There were queues to get into shops with railing to herd people, I hated it but kept on going, the girls got hand bag booty and at much reduced prices, alas hundreds of shops and not a thing which would be of interest to me other than stocking up on M&S marzipan balls which were sold out. Back home for early evening, all a bit weary, Mandy got the ham on boiling then roasted while we tucked into a sort of alternative monopoly game which being made in China came with its own spelling mistakes, without any ( much?) cheating Mandy won albeit we stopped before dinner was ready, the game wasn't that good that we would jeopardise dinner but passed a happy couple of hours

We did get more DVD orders today so not one day without orders, those now ready to post will go out tomorrow Friday which I presume sees post services resumed. A momentous day in one respect, one of the family on my fathers side has done the Ancestry DNA test and came straight up with a very close relation may as should a great nephew. This was the first modern living relative confirmed , previously it was all several generations back. Tomorrow we have a National Trust Christmas lit up park trip at Dunham Massey. The hm went down well tonight as did the remainder of the Christmas pudding, no one could face more Christmas cake though.

In the past many of our Christmases were spent abroad and the first in 1980 was in Sri Lanka, here are shots I took back then, we hope you have all had a super Christmas and are looking forwards to the new year next week, if we are lucky I may get out with the camera on Monday.