There were no taxis, no cars and just the one bus on Regent Street yesterday. And no ordinary bus either – it was the Trulawn grass bus that literally stopped people in their tracks all day.
I know this sounds like a bizarre dream but it was in fact real as we took part in the Summer Streets celebration of London’s favourite shopping destination.
Our day started at 10am when we arrived in Regent Street and parked up near Piccadilly Circus. Our installers Johnny and Ryan came along with nearly 100sq meters of Regal artificial grass that they quickly rolled out to create an oasis of green in the middle of London’s busiest shopping street.
The event was the last in a series of four traffic-free Sundays on Regent Street. Each Sunday had a specific theme including fashion, street art and action & play. Yesterday Regent Street was transformed into an urban garden – filled with greens spaces, plants and of course Trulawn.
Within an hour we had created a mini park that quickly become a hit with shoppers that wanted to sit down on our comfy grass and watch the world go-by. As ever the bus was a main attraction with kids hopping on and off all day to have a go behind the wheel (the bus didn’t actually move anywhere!) and do some colouring in.
In other parts of Regent Street there were live jazz bands, pop-up cocktail bars (Johnny sampled a mojito) a bee friendly garden, acrobatics, hula hooping and poetry. RHS Chelsea Flower Show silver medalist Annie Guilfoyle and her team also created an urban garden with real perennials and plenty of inspiration for the green fingered visitors.
With all that going on and 75 flagship stores to enjoy there was plenty to do and plenty of tired shoppers that appreciated the chance to take the weight off for a while on our grass. By 12pm our area was packed and included some interesting sights – including the man in very short shorts – who decided to snuggle up by the bus and have a sleep!
After a busy day with 100,000 visitors (including many more artificial grass converts) we were ready to hop on the bus and hit the road back to Trulawn Towers after a thoroughly enjoyable day out in the big smoke.
