I'm rather taken with Geoffrey, a friendly giraffe used to promote Toys R Us since 1965. I'm even more taken with his bench inside W H Smith in Chippenham. Prior to the chain's sale earlier this year, it was agreed that certain stores would also have a Toys R Us section within them. Geoffrey's bench marks the transition from one of our traditional High Street retailers into something more fun and entertaining, though sadly rather empty when I took this photo. At some point the name W H Smith will morph into its new owner's chosen rebrand name, T G Jones* - rather bland in my opinion which appears to have been made up, unlike the original name which refers to the company's original founder Henry Walton Smith and reaches back to the year 1792. * = it has already in nearby Malmesbury, though they have yet to erase the etched W H Smith from the glass doors. They seem to have retained the corporate blue colour on the shopfront too, for now at least. UPDATE - it tur...
Agapanthe?
ReplyDeleteYou are correct Naomi - we disembarked from the ferry and headed straight for Jardins Agapanthe and a tour with Alexandre Thomas himself. He gave me that jar of jam as well!
DeleteOh you were spoilt for choice there VP. Looking forward to reading all about your garden visits.
ReplyDeleteWe were indeed Anna!
DeleteOh my, it looks fun though!
ReplyDeleteIt was! Still getting my head around it all :)
DeleteEnjoying all the photos. Looks like fun :) x
ReplyDeleteThanks Karen, it was a lot of fun. Tiring though! :)
DeleteI still cannot understand how youboth had the energy to visit up to five gardens in one day! That's an incredible rate of garden bothering, it really is.
ReplyDeleteHaving completed the map now, I find it hard to believe myself! We're slackers though, we ran out of time for the Garden Greeter tour of the public gardens in Chartres (it was raining, so we felt less guilty about it!) ;)
DeleteLooks like you had a wonderful time in France!
ReplyDeleteYes, we did thanks. We'll be talking about this for months if not years to come :)
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