We used to use Meadowhall as service station on forays up & down the M1 when we lived in Durham - just as we used to hit The Trafford Centre en route to Les's singaround at The Beech - the first being two years ago, being hungry en route & unsure of the Chorlton amenities. Though we no longer attend the Beech sing (which is no longer the necessity it once was having discovered The Moorbrook in Preston which is the finest sing / session in the world bar none), once every eight weeks or so we might head for the Trafford Centre after a jaunt to Manchester for a rake around in the warm of a winter's night - or the dry of a summer's.

I doubt I'd be doing this on my own, but after 10 years Rapunzel & I still very much in love and enjoy romantic Subways, going to see Harry Potter films (and District 9), and looking at stuff in the shops we'll later buy at half the price on-line. We like IKEA too, as much for the fish & chips as the flat-pack crap with with we furnish our home (the odd antique notwithstanding) but quite honestly Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without The Trafford Centre.

Another of my Festive Reads this year: Vic Reeves' Vast Book of World Knowledge - a more than worthy follow-up to his 1999 classic Sun Boiled Onions.