The shop is closed to customers, but deliveries and collections are now allowed, and in the office round the back the phone keeps ringing with new orders.
Owner Tony Netherton said they were very busy because so many people wanted to send flowers to say thank you to those who have been helping them during the lockdown.
‘That’s been the main bulk of the messages this time, people are saying thank you for looking after me, thank you for all that you are doing for me, thank you for going to see so-and-so, it’s been really nice.’
‘Obviously it’s always good to be able to make some money again – and flowers bring joy and happiness to a lot of people.
‘The seasonal spring flowers are popular. It depends a lot on colour, people like bright and cheerful, and some people like pastels.’
The business is operating under the Public Health guidelines for stage one of the exit from lockdown and Mr Netherton explained that it was all very doable.
‘There’s social distancing within the workplace and there’s plenty of handwash facilities, sanitiser, and obviously masks or visors.
‘The deliveries are all contactless, the driver isn’t allowed to actually give the flowers over to somebody, they put them on the doorstep, and it’s working well.
‘For collections people can pull in, and we put the flowers on the floor, and they collect it and go off.’
Valentine’s Day is usually the equivalent of Christmas for florists, but this year things had to be scaled back because at that stage only lone workers were allowed onto premises classed as non-essential.
When the second lockdown was announced suddenly in January, it was a difficult moment for shop owners with perishable stock. Mr Netherton found a bright side.
‘The day we went into lockdown we had a fresh delivery so that was a couple of thousand pounds’ worth of flowers, so we donated most of them to them to the hospital staff, and to GreenAcres, and to a couple of the care homes.
‘It was too many for us just to take home, so we thought that was just the best thing to do.’
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