We stayed in Oxford for the first weekend and met up with our son and his fiancée. We stayed in a hotel as they both live in shared houses. Seeing the buffet breakfast on the first morning was great, so much choice, several types of fruit, pastries, bread, toast, cheese, salami and a full English breakfast, tea, coffee and juices. On Saturday we went to Blenheim Palace for the day, beautifully decorated for Christmas.
You can't miss that it's nearly Christmas here, every street, shop and public space lit up with Christmas lights, Christmas music everywhere and Christmas presents and food on sale.
We headed back to York on the motorway on Sunday and spent a week in York. We combined meeting up with lots of friends and colleagues with sorting out Christmas presents and cards for friends and family. On Saturday we joined some friends to celebrate a 60th birthday. It was a beautiful sunny but very cold and frosty winters day. We drove up to Nunnington Hall and went for a walk through the Howardian hills. We ended up at a pub for lunch. Then in the evening we all met up for a wonderful evening of good food and conversation. We made up one of our chocolate puddings for the first time for over a year.
Yesterday (Sunday) we drove down to the South West to see family in the run up to Christmas. Today we ticked another must do off of the list and walked along the sea front in Plymouth before heading to the shopping centre for tea and cake and some final Christmas presents.
