The Daily Fleur

I'm a girl surrounded by flowers.

Sunday was Mum’s Birthday and as a special treat (for us), she had 28 of us round for dinner. Anyone who knows my mum will tell you this is nothing new; having had 7 children, she’s quite used to cooking for any number of people at the drop of a hat. In recent weeks she’s not been well but in her weakened state she dreamed up a feast fit for a full size family. It was a Sunday dinner of sorts, more like a Christmas Feast without the crackers, and I lost count of the amount of desserts she had made but I did my best to try them all (Her food is exquisite, I’m not even joking).

I took care of the table centre pieces, I had to make 3 of them because the table was so massive (and I only had shop scraps to make them with because Saturday was so busy we completely sold out of flowers!). 

The meal was full of magic, our rendition of Happy Birthday was particularly harmonious and I’ll always treasure seeing my  89 year old Gran talk to her American great-grandchildren on Skype. It was a great family day and I think my Mum really enjoyed it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!

Congratulations to Mr & Mrs Wright, who celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary today, that’s 60 years of marriage! Mrs Wright came to us for a floral cake-top decoration, we discussed what flowers she’d had at her wedding all those years ago and giggled at the thought of her bouquet that day, having held just 3 pink Carnations, “Of course we were still on coupons in those days”. How times change. Of course, we managed to snag some pink Carnations for her (They come in wraps of 20 now) and we put just 3 in the arrangement, just as it was back then. We also made some petal trails with silver wire and draped them over and around the cake but that’s not important, what is important is these two; still happy after all these years. What’s their secret? Maybe 3 really is the magic number.

Congratulations to Mr & Mrs Wright, who celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary today, that’s 60 years of marriage!

Mrs Wright came to us for a floral cake-top decoration, we discussed what flowers she’d had at her wedding all those years ago and giggled at the thought of her bouquet that day, having held just 3 pink Carnations, “Of course we were still on coupons in those days”. How times change.

Of course, we managed to snag some pink Carnations for her (They come in wraps of 20 now) and we put just 3 in the arrangement, just as it was back then. We also made some petal trails with silver wire and draped them over and around the cake but that’s not important, what is important is these two; still happy after all these years.

What’s their secret? Maybe 3 really is the magic number.

Have you ever heard of a book called Hope for the Flowers? It’s a sublime little story wrapped in a bright yellow cover, about two caterpillars who doubt the existence of butterflies. “It’s a tale partly about life, partly about revolution and lots about hope. For adults and others (including caterpillars who can read).” It’s a book that you just can’t seem to hold onto a copy of, somehow the opportunity always arises to give it away.

Have you ever heard of a book called Hope for the Flowers? It’s a sublime little story wrapped in a bright yellow cover, about two caterpillars who doubt the existence of butterflies.

“It’s a tale partly about life, partly about revolution and lots about hope. For adults and others (including caterpillars who can read).”

It’s a book that you just can’t seem to hold onto a copy of, somehow the opportunity always arises to give it away.

Quite often, we are asked to create something bright and colourful to cheer someone up. For this we use tropical flowers; they’re bold without being too garish and the jungle-effect foliage helps to give real Wow! factor.

They can get quite heavy though, finishing them off is a two woman job.

Oof! The first day back after a bank holiday weekend is always a toughie. I cleaned all the vases this morning so, after noon I took time to make this little beauty. This order came through an online relay company, which allows it’s customers to purchase imaginary bouquets from a gallery of images on their website; they then refer the transaction to the nearest florist (In this case, us) and it’s our job to make their chosen bouquet a reality and of course, deliver it promptly. I almost always have to substitute what’s in the picture for what we’ve got in the shop but I do my best to keep the general theme alive. Here we see the “Golden Garden Basket”, or something like that.

Oof! The first day back after a bank holiday weekend is always a toughie. I cleaned all the vases this morning so, after noon I took time to make this little beauty.

This order came through an online relay company, which allows it’s customers to purchase imaginary bouquets from a gallery of images on their website; they then refer the transaction to the nearest florist (In this case, us) and it’s our job to make their chosen bouquet a reality and of course, deliver it promptly. I almost always have to substitute what’s in the picture for what we’ve got in the shop but I do my best to keep the general theme alive.

Here we see the “Golden Garden Basket”, or something like that.

It was a total bouquet day, none stop hand-ties from 9 ‘til 5.

The possibilities are infinite when you’ve got beautiful flowers to choose from and each customer wants something different for every occasion. I just follow a couple of rules and it just never seems to fail, which is a bonus.

I’ll get some photos taken to show how it’s done. It’s simple and you can make even a bunch of weeds look fancy.

Lorenz stopped by today in his massive lorry, which is basically a refrigerated flower market on wheels! He comes over from Holland weekly and told me he’d driven 1100 miles since Sunday. There used to be loads of Dutch flower vans around but it’s hard to find a good one these days and even harder for them to stay in business. Lorenz has quality stock and it’s a delight to walk up and down the ailse cooing at the wide variety of gorgeous flowers, I’m always spoiled for choice.

I picked out some roses for a friends wedding this weekend. Roses have the quaintest names, Cool Water, Sweet Avalanche, Aqua, Blue Gene, all of them varieties of pink, would you believe?

TWISTEd HAZEL HEARTS, I finally sold one today! Maybe it’s because I put them on show outside the shop.  I think I can feel a display coming on.

TWISTEd HAZEL HEARTS, I finally sold one today! Maybe it’s because I put them on show outside the shop. 

I think I can feel a display coming on.

I would like to assure you that the highest possible security measures have been taken to ensure my safety. Simples.

I would like to assure you that the highest possible security measures have been taken to ensure my safety.

Simples.

STOP! THIEF!

Today as I sat in the gift shop updating our facebook page, I heard a noise from the next room. Normally, this means I have a customer so I spring to my feet and respond in the usual way. Today however, instead of finding someone in the shop, I found a chap leaving, vase of flowers in hand.

It wasn’t really a “STOP! THIEF!” moment, it was a bit more like “Oi! What do you think you’re doing?!”. Now, this guy is a regular customer, he’s always in buying roses and I respect fellas who do that so, I give him a bit of discount and he keeps coming back. He must have been having a bad day, he’d already been in for his roses this morning and yet here he stood in front of me, half-way up the street clutching all my remaining pink roses, seven in total.

I was shocked more than anything, I’m a very trusting sort, I take after my Mum on that score. I cannot repeat the contents of our exchange, there was some foul language on my part and that seemed to give him permission to follow suit. He claimed to have been waiting too long a time for me to materialise but I know I would have heard him, customers have ways of getting your attention like, jangling the change in their pockets or sniffing rather loudly, heck, most people give a timid “Hello?” and of course there’s my favorite “Shop!”. No, the truth is, as a regular he knew I would be sat in the gift shop and took his chance for a freebee. In the end I managed to get him back in the shop, where I dressed the flowers properly and charged him full price, for his cheek. But then, the real teller, he had no money on him at all and had to go home to get some. He had never intended to pay.

Now I really bollocked him and deservedly so and before he left I told him, “Don’t you dare be going to another florist now just because you’re too embarrassed to show your face. You come and see me for your flowers, okay? You don’t help yourself!”. I don’t know what came over me. I’m open minded enough not to take this personally, like I said he was having a bad day, I could tell.

I refuse to let this experience make me more suspicious of people, right now in sheer defiance there’s a vase of Sweet Peas outside the shop and next to them a bucket of change. I doubt anyone will take them and if they did I’d tell myself they must have really needed it. I just wanted to share the story because it seemed like a good one.

Long live casual drama and cheeky sods.