And the winner is...........

OK, so the choosing of a new name for my French toy doll shop is long overdue. The original deadline was the end of January, which was then extended to the end of February.

Many thanks to all of you who left comments or emailed your suggestions. These were all transcribed onto pieces of paper then scattered randomly all over the floor this morning, before letting Small Dog loose to select a winner.

Predictably this did not go exactly to plan.

Initially she declined to participate, sitting down and looking at us with a perplexed air. I had hoped that she would sniff around and definitively choose a paper, either by licking it or placing her paw firmly on one.

After a while she did decide to have a wander round, carefully picking her way through the paper minefield, assiduously avoiding each piece. Perhaps my years of carefully training her NOT to tread on any open books, photographs etc laid on the floor were finally bearing fruit after all.

However, so far so useless.

We then had to resort to bribery, by casting a few bits of her favourite doggy biscuit (aka Gravy Bones) into the air and waiting for her to pounce.

There was pouncing aplenty but she still carefully avoided treading on or otherwise showing a preference for any one piece of paper.

Eventually, when all the Gravy Bones had been scoffed, she did finally sit down with her paw on a single scrap which she was then suddenly reluctant to relinquish.







And so the eventual winner is "La Petite Poupee", submitted by Julie.

Congratulations Julie, I'll be in touch later!

There were a number of French suggestions, in keeping with the style, setting and period of the shop, as well as many variations on the 'dolly' theme, including "Hello Dolly", and "Valley of the Dolls". Also worthy of note was a suggestion from north of the border "Hiya Doll" echoing the romantic greeting usually given by a Glaswegian swain to his paramour.

Anyway, now that the name has been chosen, I have no excuse for not pressing on with tarting up the shop...... except for not having chosen the colour scheme yet.