Floraging returns!!!

I’m so pleased now that Spring is well and truly here. I went walking today up past lots of agricultural fields to the next village along our valley, Ecorans. It’s a cute little village, so small it doesn’t even have a boulangerie! In fact it makes Collonges look positively busy!! It’s a pretty walk.  There are so many trees out in blossom, and tonnes of pretty little wildflowers everywhere. Of course I collected a little stash to bring home. I love the leggy yellow primulas that are blooming everywhere. I’m hoping this jar I’ve sneaked inside doesn’t set off another batch of hay fever in the house!!

 

 

Hello Finn!

It’s been a busy time!! What with having a new baby, a crazy toddler and a trip to Nice, the weeks have flown by. Finn was born on valentines day. He is so far (touch wood!) an easy baby, sleeping and eating great. He’s very smiley too. So altogether pretty perfect! Poor child though, born to a florist on valentines day!

Well, here he is at 2 months old!

   

I had a such a fun trip to Nice for my mums 60th birthday with my sisters. Ice-creams, a bit of sunshine, good food, drinks, and lots of dog spotting, it was great!! I got the train there. Great for people watching, and my french is improving just enough to be able to eavesdrop just a little!

   

 

There’s been some flowering too of course! I so much prefer designing in a vase or a jar than sending the flowers off in an aqua pack. All that plastic wrapping just doesn’t really feel quite right, (and takes ages for me to do!) but I like to keep the flowers in water and not everyone wants a vase. Hm! I’m currently exploring some other options, so watch this space!

   

   

  

So what’s next? 

Well, I’m obsessing about what to grow in the garden! I just received a package of seeds from higgledy garden in Cornwall, England. I’ve been stalking their website for ages, so am very excited! Last summer we were travelling around so I didn’t get to grow anything, so I can’t wait to get started! I’m trying to come up with a bit of a plan for where to put everything, and hoping that at least some of the flowers and veg grow. (Of course, I have already caught some mystery bugs eating up my strawberry leaves on the porch, argh!! And don’t start me on the HUGE beetles living in holes in the grass! Skin crawling!!) 

I will be keeping a track of my failures and any possible successes on the blog again!

Brrr!!!

It seems that as soon as Christmas is over all of us florists seem to start talking about Spring… Me included!

Pretty wishful thinking, although there are some beautiful spring feeling flowers to pick from at the minute – hyacinth, anemone, tulip, ranunculus to name a few. The weather has other ideas for us though, so we are currently buried in snow!

Spring jar –

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Bright and fresh deliveries –

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Current Reality –

But soon soon it will be Spring, I’m sure of it!

Am I allowed to have favourites?

No not children (on that note – still waiting the arrival of #2) – arrangements!

In January we had our first non-family visit to our new life – my best friend, right from the start of high school, and her Scottish husband and baby. We had a great time, showing them around, lots of eating of course including a visit to our local auberge and a new cafe and creperie discovery that we hadn’t been to before in geneva, yumyum, and chilling out at home watching silly tv and playing poker at night. I think they liked it here too, (or if they didn’t they put on a good show!)

Hi Katie and Dave!

Anyway, It seems only fitting that after the Scottish visit I received an order for a Burns night party in France. I thoroughly enjoyed hunting out some tartan, and found some gorgeous delphinium and thistles for it too. I think this is one of my favourite arrangements yet…. Something about that blue!

Christmas round up.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on the blog…. Whoops!

The run up to Christmas was really busy, ending with me making up some bouquets out of the back of the car to deliver just before heading to the airport to fly back to N.Ireland for Christmas…. It was tight but we made our flight! I had Maisie along for the ride, so we stopped by a couple of gorgeous big horses to give her some entertainment while I worked….. A fun clash of home and work life. They were quite disappointed with our snack selection though, so we’ll have to be better organised next time.

I enjoyed making up some really Christmassy arrangements too. I loved this icy table centre, and got back into traditional reds and whites in a big way! It’s still a pleasure delivering around here. I’m discovering lots of new places, and coming into contact with some interesting people!

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It’s started!

I’m very excited to report that Kate’s Blooms has started to get going for real in the new land!

A long chain of events led me to a great place to share some photos of my work online, and start getting orders – It’s funny where a question about buying a double buggy for impending motherhood of two can lead you!! There’s a strong and supportive expat group in this area, and it seems that a lot of people understand the difficulties of picking up your life and starting again in a new place.

My french lessons are still going…. I can’t really say going well, because it’s hard and I’m definitely not a natural, (for example, I managed to tell my teacher that I’ve been living separately from my husband for the past three years. This is not true, but I couldn’t find the right words to correct myself, so we’re just going with that!) but hopefully in time I’ll be able to connect better with french speakers in the area too!

It’s been really fun, and fulfilling to get working again – let’s hope the orders keep coming!

Floral adventures

Now that we’re settled in I’m ready to get back to normal. In floristry terms this has meant walking along the country roads, dodging speeding frenchies, pulling weeds and flowers from the side of the ditch, and wishing I had brought my clippers to ‘trim’ some of the lovely foliage and trees! And also wishing I wasn’t wearing so many clothes…. Autumn is so confusing!!

I went to one of the many markets in geneva this week, and was very pleased to find some great local flowers, like these dahlias from Taverny & fils horticulture. Google searches are getting some strange results now as it tries to decipher my weird translations for things. But it seems like there are plenty of local growers in the area!

It was a fun adventure into the city. We got the tram in and had a good explore. I know it’s sacrilege in the land of beautiful pastries, and great ‘cafe’, (and I could post a million photos of Instagram worthy macaroons, mille-feuille, or escargots de raisons), but I just could not resist a Starbucks when we went past. Sometimes you just need that American cinnamon fix!

French life begins.

We’ve arrived to our new house at last! My last update was California. Since then we’ve moved between Aspen, boston, New York and Belfast. Phew. So we’re really happy to be settling in for our new life here.

French village life is all I hoped for so far…. Cows with bells, fresh bread in mornings and eclairs for pudding, and a lot of charming houses everywhere.

There’s the other side too of course- a ‘new’ car which has already visited the mechanics about 5 times, endless paperwork, lots of pointing instead of speaking and struggling terribly in my first french lesson – Turns out I really don’t remember much from school! I’ll get there eventually!

Here are some pictures to set the scene for the next three years.

California

We spent three weeks in beautiful Santa Barbara. Matthew worked hard while Maisie and I explored, played, relaxed and pretended we were living in paradise forever. I loved the botanic gardens, the beaches, wine country, all of it really. My visit to rose story farm was a big highlight, especially picnicking with the old biddies from the garden club afterwards- lots of cheeky stories behind the powder puff!! There was beauty everywhere, here are just a few photos to give a taster….

Where have you been?!

Wow, I’ve been away from the blog for a long time! Well, winter was long and pretty uninspiring. But the sun is out, and everything’s blooming at last!

There are lots of life changes coming up for me, but before that….

Here are some recent pictures, mostly of arrangements made in Bow Street Flowers, and also of a really nice spring garden I saw on the way to work. It was at the Swedenborg chapel, where Emanuel Svedberg’s mystical ideas inspired a religious movement. Kind of interesting!

This was the last mothers day I’ll work in Bow street, as we are moving away soon…. just another couple of weeks left in Boston, then it’s California for our first stop, finishing up in Switzerland in September! I feel really sad to leave here, we’ve had a wonderful three years, made some great friends and had so much fun.  But I’m looking forward to new adventures! The next big challenge is going to be learning some French, then I’m hoping to find someone like Shelley at Bow St to take me under their wing again………