A DAY IN THE LIFE OF…A FLORIST
As well as being the owner of 27 Alloway for over 20 years, Linda Singh is also the wife of Robin, and mum of three grown-up children, Amelia, Izzy and Duncan – not forgetting the three dogs! When she’s not working, she likes to work out (apparently, you need to be fit to be a florist!) and to walk with friends in the beautiful Ayrshire countryside.
How long have you been a florist?
I never set out to be a florist. I was a broadcast journalist at BBC Scotland when the opportunity to buy the property in Alloway cropped up. A friend and I had the notion to open a gift shop together and 27 Alloway was born. We added cut flowers as an option, knowing absolutely nothing about floristry! We must have got something right, though, as the flower business just grew arms and legs.
What training did you need to do?
As more and more clients were asking about the possibility of doing weddings and funerals, I knew I needed to level up my skills so I took a part-time floristry course for a few years. I also added a fabulous team of florists with a passion for what they do, learning every day from them too.
What do you like best about being a florist?
Meeting people. Flowers are a big part of so many aspects of our lives – birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, celebrations and inevitably, times of loss and sorrow too. Each occasion allows you to share a bit of someone’s life. I love those connections.
Do you dislike anything about your job?
Running out of teabags – we literally live on tea and no amount of foliage landing in it puts us off!
How many hours a week do you normally work?
Running your own business tends to mean you are always ‘on’, especially in these days of social media and the need for speedy responses.
Our days are dictated by what’s in the diary. Weddings, funerals and special events like Valentine’s and Mother’s Day or Christmas can be tough – 12 hour shifts for days on end with a never-ending pile of orders. It makes us laugh when people tell us how much they’d love to spend their day ‘faffing’ with flowers. The reality can be very different. One minute we can be scrubbing buckets, the next carrying massive floral structures, or hanging from ladders figuring out how to suspend our creations.
What time does your working day usually start?
We’re lucky to have some excellent suppliers who deliver flowers directly from world-wide growers and Dutch markets right to our shop door in the wee small hours of the morning. On regular days we’ll be in conditioning from 8am, but when we have events on, it’s a crack of dawn start.
Can you briefly describe what a typical day involves?
Every day is different, depending on whether we’re working on weddings or funerals etc. We’re conditioning flowers daily, sorting website orders and telephone enquiries and making up loads of gorgeous flowers. There’s lots of ordering to do too. We have fresh flowers arriving daily.
One piece of advice for someone looking to become a florist?
Just be super-keen to learn and use your own design flair. Flower styles are constantly evolving. We’re definitely being influenced by big event-style floral designs.
What would you be if you weren’t a florist?
A therapist – there’s a lot of that in this job too. Basically, anything that involves interacting with people. I love hearing about people’s lives.
Career highlight so far?
Meeting Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall who made a Royal visit to our row of shops in Alloway village just after lockdown. We created a posy for the local schoolchildren to present to the Duchess and she confessed to me that she’d always fancied being a florist herself.
If you had to sum up your job in one word, what would it be?
Tea-riffic!
