Debenhams Christmas Flowers

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Every woman loves receiving flowers, and particularly during the Winter months when foliage, flowers and colours are seriously lacking in the natural environment. November is also my anniversary month and my husband is very good at buying me a bouquet of the flowers that were in my wedding bouquet.

When I was recently invited to receive flower delivery from the Debenhams collection, I knew instantly that I'd be choosing the Designer Spirit bouquet which contains white roses, spiky chrysanthemums, berries, lillies and silver sprayed ferns.

Christmas Flowers by Debenhams

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Celebrating Grandparents

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Flowers

We're incredibly lucky to have my mum so close, helping us out and being a really rather awesome mother.

And Nana.

She is a fabulous Nana who loves her grandchildren without discrimination, she would do anything for them.

And that's why there was a ring at the door at 7.30 this morning. She'd taken home The Boy's new school coat to put elastic around the hood to keep his poor ears protected in this weather, been woken up early by the storm, and broken out her sewing basket there and then. Then she'd dressed and driven over to return the coat so he could wear it for a walk to the church today for our Harvest festival.

See what I mean?

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The Floristry Commission

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I was arranging the beautiful bouquet of wedding anniversary flowers from Mr. TheBoyandMe last week when my mind started to wander. This is not unusual with me, I am incapable of staying focused on one thing since having The Boy, and usually I'll contemplate anything from what we're having for dinner, to the fact that the grass needs cutting, via how many children does Jim Branning exactly have?

This time though I had a little thought about my top jobs. The jobs that I'd like to do if I wasn't a teacher, an ever more enticing thought these days! I've blogged about these thoughts before, listing traffic warden (watch out!) and baby-friendly coffee-shop owner as top choices. I'd forgotten about wanting to be a florist.

My paternal grandfather (known as Bampi) was a horticulturalist. I use that term because he was a gardener, but also spent some time working in a florist's making beautiful bouquets for loving wives like me. I like to think I've inherited his green thumb as I'm quite good at making things grow (especially weeds) but am fairly nifty at creating bouquets and arranging them.

In my florist's shop we would have huge buckets of flowers creating a carpet of flowers which would be creeping up the walls. Of course I'd have climbing pot plants all over the place; picture a Victorian style conservatory with wrought-iron display units interwoven with ivy, jasmine and bougainvillea. Rolls and rolls of satin ribbon in every shade under the sun, and a kaleidoscope of coloured cellophane to rival the biggest ebay shop!

Of course, I would be able to implement another top preferred career of professional gift-wrapper with my huge selection of gifts for her and him. Those little extras that require the attentions of the swirliest ribbons, neatest corners and shiniest paper.

What extras could I sell for the perfect birthday gift? What would you sell?

A Crumpled Piece of Paper

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The leaves are falling from the trees, the rain is pitter-pattering more heavily, and the nights are drawing in which means only one thing: it's coming up to that time of year again. Mr. TheBoyandMe knows it as well, I can sense him twitching.

No, not Christmas! Something else has to happen first before the festivities for baby Jesus and Father Christmas.

And woe betide Mr. TheBoyandMe if he gets it wrong.

Which is why he carries a note around in his wallet: akito roses, white spiky chrysanthemums, eucalyptus leaves, purple lisianthus. The piece of paper has become faded and ripped around the corners, but it's there and has been since the first time. Since our first anniversary. Years later however, it's looking a little battered.

Yet every year in mid-November he toddles off one lunchtime to one of the many florists in Cardiff to do his husbandly duty. He will ask for the flowers on his crumpled bit of paper and insist on only those flowers in them, not to be fobbed off with a cheaper white rose or normal chrysanthemums, they must be those and despite the akito roses having to be ordered in, he will be presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers to pass on to me, his adoring wife.

As you may have twigged, in just under a month's time, Mr. TheBoyandMe and I will be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. Tin! (There's exciting hey? I bought my sister some cooking tins for hers, hope she reciprocates, mine are looking a bit battered)

We were fresh-faced and had everything in front of us on that cold day in November 2001. I was just 24 and he was 26, and we had a small but cosy wedding. It cost £4,500. How many people could put together a wedding nowadays for that? We didn't scrimp on anything; I had a raw silk and lace wedding dress made for me, a vintage Rolls-Royce took me to the fairytale castle aside the wooded mountain overlooking Cardiff, there was a three-course meal in a top-Cardiff hotel (for £17.50 a head! McDonald's would charge that nowadays if you mention the word wedding alongside cheese-burger) and we stayed in the five-star Rocco Forte hotel that night. In the same suite that Robbie Williams had stayed in, but not at the same time (we had a television when we stayed there, his was removed because he'd previously thrown it into the bay).

This was my wedding bouquet:

I loved those flowers, even though they were heavy as anything, and was devastated when they died. They lasted a fortnight which just goes to show the freshness of flowers that come from a company like Interflora. Mr. TheBoyandMe knows how upset I was when they withered, which is why he makes such an effort to always get the same types.

Ten years on, and times have changed. We may not have much disposable income for regular flowers, but I can guarantee that by the end of November there will be a beautiful bouquet of flowers in the living room.

And the crumpled piece of paper will be back in Mr. TheBoyandMe's wallet, safe until next year.

The words and sentiments are my own and honest. The crumpled piece of paper is genuine; it's looking past its best-before.