happy birthday CMK

Milton Keynes shopping centre is 40 years old.  To celebrate the fact, 40 'blue fact plaques' have been placed at various points around the shopping centre.  I think I've got myself 39 more blips, if I can find them all.

When I moved here in 1978 there was no CMK, just a windswept hillside and a drawing board full of ideas.  A trip to the big shops meant Northampton or Oxford.

After a while, the initial excitement of finding a fully enclosed high street, with (free) parking right next to the shops, began to wear off and it became just another shopping centre - to me at least.  

But over the past few years, as both it and I have become older, I've begun to appreciate it once again.  It's just over a mile long from one end to the other and in the winter, when my lungs protest at the cold air, I can have a good walk without discomfort - and a coffee thrown in.

And whatever the time of year, I love it in the mornings when the sun is shining and there few folk about (see extra).

So - happy birthday CMK.

ps:  The video mentioned in the 1st blue plaque is here; don't look if the sight of skin-tight black leather trousers upsets you.