WHAT'S THIS BLOGGING ALL ABOUT JACKIE?

I started this week off a little low - I had plenty of things to do in the house, painting fences, gardening - you know - all the things you never have time to do and now you have some you still don't want to do all of them - my clothes cupboard will be one still not done!  I was lucky to have the time but somehow I still felt low, then guilty for feeling so.  But all changed the next day!  I started to get phone calls from people wanting to send flowers to those who had lost a loved one, because they couldn't go to see them or worse couldn't go to the funeral.  I had calls from funeral directors asking if we could help families have some flowers to help them say goodbye, even if they could only have 5 or worse 2 people at the service - heart-breaking. 

I had calls from people wanting to send flowers to their mum or friend who had been in self-isolation for over a month and just wanted to make them smile.  I had just delivered some flowers to a lady one morning and I admired the Alpaca she had in the garden - yes I did say that!. She called me that afternoon to ask if I could help, She had had to order a funeral tribute for her Mum's funeral off the internet and it had arrived and it really upset her as the quality was so poor.- she really wanted some special flowers for her Mum from her and her family and from her Mum's Alpacas :)

I realised that day the reason I was low at the beginning of the week was because I had lost hold of my purpose.  We all need a purpose, something to get up for in the morning and each of us will be completely different in what that is.  I'm a doer and need to be doing something, need to be busy,  but I also need to be doing something worthwhile and that's when I realised why I felt energised and positive after receiving these calls.  I was needed for something important to each person, they needed flowers to make other people smile or to help them get through a tough time.

One of my previous blogs said I wasn't going to do deliveries, other than for funeral flowers, during lock-down.  These calls made me realise I had to back down from this moral stance.  As long as I take every precaution with the flowers I receive, how I handle them during design and most importantly during the no-contact delivery and try to limit the amount of times I go out on deliveries, helping people share a bit of happiness has to be the right thing - so again a lesson in managing your own business - its ok to change your decision if you are happy to put your hands up to it and to do it for the right reasons.  So now we will be available for a no-contact delivery service for bouquets, indoor plants and our hessian bunches.  We will need to put in place a pre-order system to tie in with the less frequent flower delivery service and have fewer designs, nonetheless lovely.  We will see how it goes but I'm so grateful for all the support I have from all our customers, friends, family and my lovely husband Ricki (he told me I had to put him in here this week lol).

Also this week I decided I ought to learn about Blogging so started a free online course available from www.problogger.com and one of the first questions was Why do you want to set up a Blog - what will its purpose be?  Mmm good question! I set it up because the life of a florist is actually a very interesting one. You met so many people with interesting stories, there are so many skills and knowledge needed being a florist as well as a small business owner - I'm still learning but I love to share - if people are interested. I had started writing a book sometime ago and enjoyed it so thought maybe I'd have a go.  I have to say that was as far as my thinking went.  

It seems just like floristry, blogging has a lot to it! Today I thought I would google "What is the definition of a Blog" - A blog is short for web log, an on-line journal, where you share opinions, stories, photos and videos, it helps send traffic to your website and I think my favourite part is - it connects you with a relevant audience.  I'm going to carrying on learning about blogging and hope I can make your experience as good as it can be.  It would also help me so much to know you have read what I write, let me know what you think, any improvements and if there is anything you'd like to hear about.  I know it can be tricky to leave a message on the actual blog but if you came through a fb link leave a comment or like on there for me - Thank you for helping me with my purpose and giving me some energy back - Stay safe and well xx