22/07/2024
I’m not ready for this week…
The end of my best era so far - a lot of it due to this place, the people, and the woman I found within it. 🧡
These photos were all pre-23.03.20 and hardly recognisable I think - when all I had was a plan to “get past Mother’s Day and then we’ll figure out the flower shop set up in April!” 😂😅🫣… it didn’t happen that way!
The day I met Raluca & saw the basement space , one day in late February 2020, I also went to visit my grandparents, took them some flowers and told them all about this workshop space I’d found, still in W12, the lower ground floor of an artisanal sourdough baker (trying to make it sound grandparent fancy!)
After dinner I was sat next to their book shelves, something I had done 1000s of time before but on this day the Japanese Flower Arranging book caught my eye, I’m pretty sure I’d looked at that book before, however on this day, on the first page I saw the quote by Mohammed which is photo No.1 - that was all I needed, I knew I was in the right place, at the right time & was excited for what we could do together 🫂 🥖 💐
No.2 - moving in day : I don’t remember this day, but I love how clear & clean everything looked 😅
No.3 - my first bouquets I made DOWNSTAIRS
No.4 - the first big delivery of flowers & stunning British Blossom to the shop
No. 5 - the first of many madeleines, the ones the & I miss so much!
No. 6 - the bench - many a bouquet & bottoms have sat on this bench and pretty much whatever the weather it’s outside the shop to let people know there’s bread to buy, conversations to have and from March 2020 flowers as well!
No. 7 - Lilac, soon I was to learn this is Raluca’s favourite flower
No. 8 - Flowers coming up from Downstairs
No. 9 - Bread & Flowers (when the plinths were still plinth-ing!)
No. 10 - Celebrating Mothers, on the eve of 🔒⬇️ our first Mother’s Day offering to make sure toast & tulips were on the breakfast tray for the mummys of West London!
This Saturday will also be the last shop day for Francis Smith Flowers 💐 I will explain further in the next few posts…
