Safer, Saner Places...

Last Tuesday [Valentine's Day] we had to go out and buy a new kettle and afterwards we stopped off for coffee.

Full marks to Costa at Castlepoint Retail Park- note the glass of water with Bob's espresso, and the romantic chocolate hearts in our saucers!
Costa is upstairs in WHSmiths.
It does seem to me these days that I only go into branches of WHS for their instore coffee shops or Post Offices. 
WHS seemed to be so much more interesting when I was younger - more serious books, useful stationery items [not just pretty notebooks and colouring pads for adults] Now there are stacks of celebrity cookbooks and novelty gifts.

There were piles of Ladybird books with titles like 'How It Works -The Wife'' "Mindfulness" "The Shed" "The Hipster" and more. 

Also they have some spoof Famous Five titles [Five go Gluten Free, Five on Brexit Island, Five go on a Strategy Away Day]
Now they are doing a range of alternative I-Spy books too. I loved the original ones as a child, when we went on long car journeys. 

I hadn't seen these ones before. I looked through the one about signs and instructions that you MUST obey.
I was tickled by the sign telling tractors to slow down. It suggests that if you spot this, you will have made it to one of those 'safer, saner regions... like Norfolk' - but the sign depicted was printed in Dorset.[We discovered last year that the epicentre of such signage is actually Ferndown - many of these roadsigns are created in a workshop here!]