Best laid plans :)

Goodness me; 5 weeks into the new year already and all my plans to update our social media pages daily (or every other day J ) and to write some waffle to fill the blog each week, have (as always) gone completely out of the window J

What a start to 2018 we have had. If the rest of the year continues in the same vein (not sure if that is the right vein to be using – I’m sure someone out there will correct me if I am wrong!!) then this could well be our best year ever. It’s been a phenomenal start, and for that, and each and every customer who has walked through the doors, telephoned an order through, or placed an order online, I am truly grateful and extremely thankful. You are the reason I drag my fat bum out of bed each morning J

The start of this year has also been a beautiful time for flowers (if you follow our Instagram you will have seen the gorgeous green hellebore I had in this week – they were stunning).

The quality we’ve been receiving has been second-to-none, and while flowers are costing more than previous year (the pound doing so poorly against the euro is really affecting prices) I think you will all agree that as with anything, you ‘get what you pay for’.  The 2 photographs below I took this morning; they are from the display hand tied I have in the shop, which I made up on Monday 22^nd January. 17 days ago. As you can see they still look as good as the day I made them. Admittedly it is most likely slightly colder in the shop than in your own homes, however, in your homes you would have taken them out of their box by now, conditioned them every few days, and kept them away from heat sources and drafts; I have done nothing to these except top their water up, so in effect we’d be on the ‘same page’. I do still have some carnations indoors that I took home on Christmas Eve.

Spring flowers are coming in thick-and-fast right now too and have been for a few weeks. Double tulips this year have been the best I’ve ever seen in all my hundreds of years in the trade. I guess the dutch had good growing weather. I had some gorgeous double daffodils in for an order yesterday (which were mixed with lilacs and purples – such gorgeous colours together) although I do still prefer to see daffs in a garden (or the side of a road) than in a shop. Of course, a bunch in a vase on your dining or coffee table will always be a welcome sight; I just prefer if they are picked from your own garden. I actually saw some on Tuesday morning in full bloom at the edge of someone’s garden. I know the weather has been a lot milder (until this week) but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them out quite-so-early. Our seasons really are causing our flowers to bloom at the wrong time.

I need to apologise to those of you who couldn’t keep track of me the week I was poorly – I’ll put the record straight now on what happened that week, for I have heard so many different reasons as to why I had to close the shop, some of which have made me chuckle and others have made me stand there shaking my head wondering what kind of person could dream up such a thing in the first place? Anyway. The real reason is because I caught chickenpox. I know, at my age! As a result a doctor signed me off sick for 10 days, however, I had orders coming out of my ears, and was busier than a busy person, so I still had to come to work, but, all the time I was contagious I wasn’t allowed to open the shop, hence why it was closed for a week. A couple of you I was able to serve through the closed shop door (sorry for scaring you with my spots J ) but many of you I had to let down by not being here, for once I had completed each day’s orders I did take the advice of my doctor and took myself off home again. I can tell you now I have never experienced anything like it, and would not wish it upon my worst enemy (if I had any, that is J ). We sure do need to be careful what we wish for, because as a child I desperately wanted to catch it so I could have time off like my family and friends were. I never got it, had to sit in school classes on my own while everyone else was off with them (and other childhood diseases). Some 40 years later they decided to finally put in an appearance and I still didn’t get to have time off!  Sorry about the grumpy looking photo, but I was concentrating more on getting the spots in focus than on my expression; this was taken on only my 2^nd day. The following morning all the gaps I had between them were filled with more. It’s been over 3 weeks and I still have some.