6.00am The day starts with Keith and his crew out in the fields, picking flowers in all weathers, ensuring that only the freshest blooms are packed and sent out for you. The flowers are picked in bud and brought into our cool stores where they wait to be sorted and graded later in the day.

7.30am Becky opens the office and turns on the computers. This is the time for listening to the answer phone messages, dealing with faxes, which have come through during the night, and taking the orders off the Internet. She prints all the address labels and message cards ready for the day’s pack.

8.00am The call centre staff arrive in the office and the telephones are manned. You can be sure of a friendly voice and a helpful manner when you call our office.

8.30am Out in the packing shed, Will and his team are busy packing the best quality flowers for the day’s dispatch. All flowers are sleeved and sent with foliage and ribbons, wrapped in tissue and carefully packed in our presentation gift boxes with your personal message. We are very good at dealing with special requests, such as gold packaging for a Golden Wedding. These orders have to be prepared separately and are done at no extra cost. Our largest bouquets are packed in the cleverly designed boxes, which ensure their safe arrival at their destination. All our packaging is designed to give maximum protection to the flowers.

9.30am Your gift boxes of beautiful scented flowers are packed into Royal Mail sacks, ready for the first stage of their journey by boat to St Mary’s.

10.00am Flowers are taken by van to the quay, where they are loaded on to the Mail Boat. This boat travels from St Mary’s each day, in all weathers, bringing the day’s mail from the Mainland and carrying our boxes of flowers back to St Mary’s again. It is strenuous work carrying all those sacks of flowers down the quay steps! Once on St Mary’s, the flower boxes travel by van to the heliport, where they are flown out by helicopter to Penzance. The Royal Mail do an excellent job, ensuring that most of our flowers arrive at their destination the very next day.

11.00am The incoming mail is delivered, opened and sorted. The office staff are very busy entering all your orders on to the computers. Speed and accuracy are very important, as many of these orders will have to be dispatched today. This is the time when the office is busiest.

12.00 noon Lunchtime brings a slight lull, but phones still have to be manned and flower boxes are still being packed. A chance for our hard working team to take a break and enjoy the island. Some of them manage a walk or a picnic on the beach. Tean, the dog is glad of the exercise too.

2.00pm The final batch of boxes are packed. The mail sacks are loaded into the van ready for the last mail-boat of the day.

2.30pm Flowers that have been picked earlier in the day are graded, sorted and tied into bunches. Only the finest quality flowers are used in our bunches. They are then stored in a long-life solution in our cold stores. This maintains the flowers in optimum condition, ready for dispatch.

3.00pm Will is busy in his office – new boxes to be ordered, advertising to be arranged – and do we need to charter a helicopter to get the flower packs away tomorrow? The call centre staff make bows in between answering your calls.

5.00pm Packing shed and office staff tidy up before going home – on the island, this means a five-minute walk for most.

7.00pm The evening shift arrives to take over on phones - a friendly voice on the end of the phone till 8.00pm.

8.00pm All is quiet, the office closed, packing shed tidy, cold stores full of flowers. The answer phone has been switched on and the Internet and fax are available all night to take your orders ready for the next day.

The end of another successful day at Churchtown Farm.

Tel: 01720 422169

Call for telephone orders and enquiries: 7 days a week 8am-8pm (5pm weekends)

Overseas: +44 1720 422169
Fax: 01720 422800