My ‘Mother’s Day’ started at 6am this morning. No lie- in, breakfast in bed or a morning lounging around in my bunny rabbit pyjamas and matching slippers, for me.

The shop was open for collections, but you wouldn’t believe the number of people who had left Mum’s flowers to the very last minute and I mean the VERY last minute. I hope those that left it so late, had a back up plan because few florists were open this morning and those like me that were, would be very lucky to have enough flower available for passer-bys.

Now that we have successfully fulfilled every order and request, I can let you into a secret…Until yesterday, I didn’t know for sure whether we were going to have enough flowers to cover all the orders I’d taken.

French Customs workers have been either on strike or working to rule in anticipation of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, so Flower deliveries from Holland have been slow and somewhat erratic. A typical conversation with the wholesaler this week would go something like…

“Can I have twelve dozen Italian Stocks for Thursday?”

“I can do you eight yellow roses for Saturday”

If it was a normal week, I might have been able to work around the uncertainty but NOT THIS week!! The week leading up to Mother’s day is unbelievably stressful for any florist and this air of apprehension and fear that there will be NO FLOWERS on Mother’s day was scary to say the least. I was still taking orders on Friday afternoon, not knowing if stock would arrive on Saturday morning. I’m not sure what I would have done if the flying Dutchman hadn’t turned up, but thank heavens he did!

Saturday was completely mad. I had 5 florists making up over a hundred bouquets and two delivery drivers; Batman (John) and Robin (my brother Phil) thankfully not in costume, driving (very sensibly) around the best parts of West Sussex.

We were all working late into yesterday evening and ‘Wonder Becks’ was back in first this morning, to make even MORE bouquets and Batman had a new sidekick in my sister-in-law, Shotgun Shell.

To be honest I wouldn’t have made it through the day without my team, wonderfully patient customers, The Little Bean Cafe, Hennings, Flower merchants Italian Max, David Baker and Helliwell AND one of my very best customers the saintly Sue H who has kept me sane (ish) over the last week. Not only does she pop in and pick up a broom when I’m having a melt-down, but knowing how busy I was going to be today and how much I love CAKE and CHOCOLATE, she baked and brought in the most amazing chocolate tart Mmmmmm….