Never undertake dangerous work, like floristry, when you are under stress!

If I practiced what I preached then I’d never get anything done, but when the pressure is on I can guarantee someone is going to get injured and it’s usually me.

I flap around like a Christmas Penguin, slapping my sides with my short little arms, making lots of noise but making little sense. Others just have to watch and wait until my usually high blood pressure drops.

While I think about it I shouldn’t be getting stressed according to my doctor, or eating chocolate or drinking alcohol….hahaaa!

Stress, Chocolate and Alcohol the 3 staples in the ‘Life of a Village Florist‘ and I’ve been having more of my fair share of all three this week.

Mostly I’ve been wreath making. The team and I have made hundreds this week, that and we’ve had two wreath making events, one in the shop the other at Amberley Castle.

“You don’t mind if we have an extra two, do you?” are words that can strike fear into an average florist’s very being. “Keep smiling, Keep smiling” I kept telling myself “No, that’s absolutely fine” I say as I manically look for around for more scissors, spare wire rings, extra fir branches and enough cinnamon sticks, fruit and berries.

Apart from straining my cheek muscles from over-smiling, I had a couple more accidents this week. On Friday morning I woke with a ‘frozen shoulder.’ I couldn’t move it at all, I couldn’t even flap my little penguin wing. It was stuck to my side and I was in terrible pain.

John had to help me dress.

I sat on the bed and flopped forward into my bra. John stood behind and with his knee firmly placed into the small of my back, he attempted to pull the hooks and eyes together. He almost got them to meet when his hand slipped and the whole bra flew round me and smacked him in the face, he was lucky he didn’t lose an eye.

When I decided I was sufficiently dressed, John took me off to the doctors. Apparently I have damaged my rotator cuff. A typical wreath making injury – all that heavy turning and twisting. Anyway, the doc said “Go home and REST, take some painkillers and definitely don’t use your arm for a few days”

So John took me back to the shop so I could catch up on all the work I’d not done while being at the doctors.

That evening I was still wreath making with one arm strapped to my side, holding a pair of extremely sharp secateurs in my fingers just under my left boob. I was tired, in pain and dextrously impaired. Something was bound to go wrong.

As I was rapidly snipping away, I mistook my finger for a woody stem and snipped a little too close. Damn that hurt… but luckily I had an old tissue and a bit of tape to hand, so I just bound it up, wiped up the blood from the holly and carried on.