A Present For You...

We Wish You A Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!

When you order a set of our Christmas bouquet cards* before 6th December we will give you a

25% discount** on our Celebration Range

So order this week and stock up for the coming New Year at the same time!!

We Wish All Our Customers A Beautifully Creative Christmas!

www.englishbotanics.co.uk

*80 cards with envelopes £14.80.
**160 cards with envelopes, normal price £29.60, this week only £22.20.
Order code EB/ER001OFFER - Offer ends 6th December 2011.

Très chic...

I mentioned yesterday that my talented friend Marian arrived on my doorstep Saturday evening with two great creations from her floristy course and thought you might like to see the very sculptural one I have on my mantelpiece at the moment.

Wouldn't it be great to have Elton John's flower budget and have a florist turn up every week with fresh creations!

Pronto Posies...

I was out with a group of friends on Saturday evening for some great live music from local band Flight Brigade in a conversion of an old oast house. We are lucky to have some great vernacular architecture locally and this building is a testament to the rich local history of the brewing industry in Hampshire.

My friend Marian, who is taking her City and Guilds Level 2 Diploma in Floristry at the moment, came too and turned up at my door with two fantastic arrangements that she had made this week on her course. The one I have placed at the end of this entry was for my Mum and Dad who had had a long week and were thrilled with the lovely country basket display.

I'm sure the florists among you will know the drill - apparently Marian is given the flowers to use each week and then has to make up a display, dismantle it and make it up again two or three times whilst being timed. Speed floristry!! I think she has a great eye for design, combined with her background in marketing she should have a brilliant, creatively satisfying, business in the near future.

Lest We Forget...

Today is a special Armistice Day as not only do we have two minutes of silence on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month but of course this is also the eleventh year of the twenty first century. In three years we will mark a century since the start of the first world war. Isn't it sad that for all the incredible progress we have seen in those one hundred years we are still fighting across the world and remembering recent loss of life alongside the loss of the first and second world wars.

The Royal British Legion, who have been raising funds to help members of the Armed Forces and their families here in the UK for ninety years, use the Poppy as their symbol, inspired by the poem In Flanders' Fields by First World War Doctor Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. The poppies I have placed at the end of this blog entry are by Georgia O'Keeffe and are for all who are remembering their lost loved ones today.

In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place;wait and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead, short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields! 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields!