Thank you.

“Well, there’s not a day goes by when I don’t get up and say thank you to somebody.”

— Rod Stewart

I think we’ve all been more thankful than usual these last few months. Some of it very vocal and well deserved - the clapping, banging, saucepan rattling - for the NHS and other key workers. And some of it more silently for the glorious weather which has surely helped with the strangeness of lockdown. 

Others of us may have been thankful for their garden, their community, their health, their family and all the other personal touches that have buoyed us along these last three months. 

Yes, I am endlessly thankful to all those key workers who have got out there day after day and kept everything going for the rest of us. I’ve been thankful for the weather as I love a bit of sun and it has helped our little family unit enjoy spending so much enforced time together. Gardening, trampolining, tree house building, marshmallow toasting - all much enjoyed activities over the many warm sunny weeks. And I’m also very thankful we live near the coast so we have had a couple of evening outings to feel the sea and sand between our toes. 

But there are a few more ‘Thank yous’ I want to share and put out there. The ‘Thank yous’ to the people that have helped Church Park Flowers stay afloat and rally through some choppy unchartered waters. 

My previous blog spoke of how the business had to adapt and change to the change and adaptions around it. But it couldn’t have done it alone - it needed support, and that support deserves to be recognised. 

So in true Oscar speech fashion, here goes:

I’d just like to start by saying ‘thank you’ to my customers. Over the last eight weeks I have been doing deliveries of bouquets in the area. I’ve had so many more orders than I first anticipated so a huge thank you to those who asked for flowers to be sent. There were ‘thank yous’, ‘thinking of yous’, anniversaries, birthdays and ‘miss you’s. All sent with love and all sent with feeling. Most were from family and friends from afar who wished to be there but couldn’t. But I could. And as much as they were thankful to me I was equally thankful to them for putting their trust in me to portray their message not just in words but in flowers. Thank you. 

Thank you to local funeral businesses and their customers. My previous blog covered that with weddings currently off the agenda I had more time to put to funeral and farewell work. I enjoy funeral work as it is the most personal of all floral creations. So it goes without saying that a heartfelt ‘thank you’ goes to the families that again put their trust in me to create was was needed. Times like this when words are so much more difficult to find and say but colours, scents and combinations can speak volumes. Thank you.

Of course none of the above would have been possible without flowers, and as my cut flower patches have just started to produce some beauties I have needed some extra beautiful British blooms. My supplier did not disappoint. Week after week I would be couriered boxes of wonderfully packaged British grown blooms. Stocks, snapdragons, tulips, alstroemerias, cornflowers, Cornish pinks - all locally grown and in beautiful condition. Thank you. (and thanks too to Ian - the FedEx driver that came every week to my gate carefully delivering my precious boxes!)

But it’s not all ‘thank you’ to those in the physical world that have ordered and enjoyed my real flowers. I don’t need to tell you how important the virtual world has been these last few months. We have all relied on it and you’re reading this now! 

Back in the beginning of lockdown at Easter (I know it seems so long ago!) I put together my first blog and insta story on creating your own spring centrepiece. And so many of you got on board and created and shared your floral arrangements. Thank you. The blog was also shared by local businesses- namely Johns of Instow and HomeSweetHome in Barnstaple - and as always I’m grateful for that support. Thank you

With no weddings and little else going on there has been less to share and shout about on social media. So I dug deep and found a few images I hadn’t shared before. I tried, and failed, to take decent pictures of my bouquet deliveries to share and keep those channels of communication open. So again, thank you to those who liked, commented, shared or even just looked at (just press ‘like’ next time!) because in the words of a big business that resonates to a small business “every little helps”. Thank you. 

Again in Oscar speech style, I should thank my family. You note I said should as I’m not sure how much support there has been amongst the constant feeding, teaching, “mum I’m bored” yells etc etc but I did manage to escape every now and then to the workshop and get a few five minutes peace!

I will leave my final thank you to my brides and grooms of 2020. To all those who have put their wedding plans on hold. Thank you, for being strong and brave. Thank you, for being patient with the world. Thank you, for being patient with me when I forgot to reply to your email! Thank you, for continuing to be a Church Park Flowers bride even if we have to wait that little bit longer.

And then we are back to Rod Stewart to sum up my thoughts on these last few months:

“…fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness, ease my troubles that’s what you do.”

Thank you. 

(Next chapter coming soon!)

Adapting a flower business in a changing environment

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change”

— Charles Darwin

I am a florist

I love flowers

I love creating beautiful things with flowers

These statements are the “root” of my business. They are the “seed” it has all started from. I had no real business plan when I started in how exactly my life would pan out. I had no five year goals or written documents. I loved flowers. I wanted to work with flowers. Let’s just take it from there....

But my floral business has taken a number of changes of direction along the way. And not always of my choosing. 

Although I’ve always loved flowers and had a pipe dream of being a florist, it was just a lucky chance that got me in. My main career path was as a Marketing professional for a number of companies in London and France but an amazing opportunity came up when I was living in London fifteen years ago that saw me go from almost zero experience to having my own business on the King Road, Chelsea. It was a steep learning curve but with the uber rich and famous as my customers it wasn’t hard to succeed. I mainly sold loose flowers, a few last minute weddings at the Chelsea Registry Office across the road. Some commissions for Keihls and Heals department store and the Manila Blanik Store.  Add a sprinkling of Russian oligarchs and some top A listers (Bob Geldof, Mark Owen, Tara Palmer Tompkinson, Felicity Kendal to name drop a few) and I had myself a decent florist business. I often worked 7 days a week, three of which started at 3 am to visit the flower market. But I learnt loads - sometimes the hard way - but it was an amazing grounding. 

Then twelve years ago we moved to North Devon and the concept of a luxury florist to the rich and famous wasn’t really going to work! No offence but it is a different environment! 

I went back to the “real world” of Marketing but missed my flowers. 

It was the chance reading of an article in a Sunday paper that got my mind whirring again. I read about flower farms and people sowing and selling British flowers. I loved the idea and read everything I could about it. We had the land, we had the polytunnel, I loved flowers - I just needed to persuade the husband this was a viable business idea (not having a husband previously meant I never had to justify my actions but now it seemed a husband was as bad as a business manager!)

I sowed, I grew, I failed, I grew again. Friends asked me to do their wedding flowers and bit by bit there was another “seedling” of a business. Fast forward three years and I have really “branched” out. 

You’ll need to read my previous blog to see where the florist business was in 2019 and how far it had “grown”

But then 2020 came along and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the current plan is starting to “wilt”. 

My crystal ball was not performing as it should when I decided to open a florist shop in Bideford in March. I’d always worked from a workshop at home but after a very successful pop up Christmas shop in Bideford (see another previous blog!) the time seemed right to go High Street full time!  My little blue flower shop opened its doors on the 7 March....... and then closed them again two weeks later on the 22 March (at least I saw Mother’s Day!)

I had around 40 weddings on the books for this year - with enquiries still coming in and then…..

Lockdown.

So, no shop and of course no weddings for the foreseeable. Was this another attack of the aphids on my flourishing floral business ideas?

Initially I turned my back on it and went back to being a full time mum and “teacher” ( oh and catering manager - who knew two boys could eat so much!) but I found myself reading so many heart lifting stories of businesses that had adapted to today’s environment and changed the way they worked, their product offering, their way of working. From Dyson hoovers to ventilators, Tarquins Gin to hand sanitiser, the local pub doing home meal deliveries - it seemed that the best business owners were standing up, brushing themselves down and thinking “right, what next?” They weren't sitting in their pjs watching Joe Wicks, they weren’t scrolling mindlessly through pointless Facebook posts, they weren’t justifying buying more wine as “essential”. They were looking at new business opportunities.

Overnight it seemed the world went online. There were videos, podcasts and tutorials galore. Could I be part of that?  My tech skills are rather limited, resources low and I don’t have the confidence to appear on camera for all to see. I wrote a blog (yes another one for you to read!) on creating your own Easter centrepiece. Give it a go - it doesn’t just have to be for Easter! I feel static image tutorials may be limited as flower arranging is such a visual and creative pastime. So although I have a few more in draft, I’m not sure it’s the right path for me at the moment. 

The turning point was that my fabulous supplier had too adapted and could courier flowers to me. As a big commercial grower of British flowers they had the stock and the means of transporting it. 

The BFA (British Florists Association) had consulted the Government and confirmed that florists could still operate using online means and practise safe delivery methods. I set up new payment systems so I can take money via secure links in texts and emails and looked at the safest delivery practises.

The result: Hand tied bouquets of beautiful British blooms delivered on Fridays across North Devon. No plastic is used, obviously great for the environment, but delivering them straight from water meant they were safe to handle. 

Ideal for birthdays, anniversary day, miss you days and thank you days. In these tough times we all need a bit of cheering up and it’s a three way thing. The sender feels happy they can send some joy, I’m happy to be back with my beloved flowers and the recipient? Well, the smile on their face says it all. 

I’m also doing more funeral work, not that I didn’t before, but it was hard to fit in around all the weddings. I actually enjoy funeral work. It can be very therapeutic, very creative, and you are doing something that again is made with love and brings joy. I speak with the families and learn about the one they have lost. There is often a story behind the flowers that are used; the husband who had no idea of colour and would wear clashing clothes - reflected in a bright and bold casket spray. The grandmother that loved the primroses in the hedgerows and now has them in her wreath.  And it’s not the sad, topical deaths that we hear the daily statistics about. It’s very much the “tide comes in, tide goes out” funerals which just reminds us that life, and death, goes on regardless and there is something strangely comforting about that.

I am a florist

I love flowers

I love creating beautiful things with flowers.