My Kind of Happy - Part One: A New Leaf Read online

  Ethel had been all for it. In fact, she’d insisted on paying for the course for me as her way of thanking me for taking in Scamp permanently. ‘There are no pockets in a shroud,’ she’d said, foisting a cheque written in her wobbly writing into my hand. ‘And I can’t think of a better person to invest in.’

  My dear old friend had made a big decision of her own: after a month at The Beeches, she’d come to the conclusion that being waited on hand and foot was far preferable to living alone in Pineapple Road and had taken up a permanent residency there. Independence lost its allure, she’d confided with dignified defeat, when all your friends were dead and you lived in fear of falling downstairs and lying in agony undiscovered for hours. And so although Scamp would always remain her dog in his canine heart, he’d be sharing a bed with me for the rest of his doggy days, a fact which made both her and me shed a tear.

  ‘But you are definitely happy here?’ I’d questioned as we’d ventured out into the gardens over the weekend with Scamp in front of us sniffing the path diligently.

  ‘Of course! All to do with mindset,’ she’d said stoically. She’d shunned the wheelchair one of the carers had brought out to reception for her and was clinging on to her walking frame for dear life.

  ‘I’ve told myself that it’s an adventure and I shall enjoy it just as much as the adventures which have gone before. Now let’s head back inside, I promised to help Arthur with the crossword this afternoon and then there’s an old Ronald Reagan film I want to watch and rumour has it that the kitchen has been making custard tarts for tea …’

  Satisfied that my old friend hadn’t had so much to occupy her for years, I approved of her decision and hoped that Scamp didn’t mind being stuck with me. I cooked him some liver for his dinner just to cement my place in his affections.

  Other big news was that Laura had moved in with Hamish. It was impossible not to be swept along by their happiness. Scamp and I were their first dinner guests and I came away feeling that both of them might just have found ‘the one’.

  And then there was my news. I’d stuck to my guns and wouldn’t reconsider my decision to leave Zed Market Trends. And thanks to an empathetic Bernie and some remaining annual leave, I had officially left the company last Friday. My time was now my own.

  I was giving myself a year’s sabbatical from my career. I didn’t quite know how I was going to fill it yet, but the sheer act of doing something radical and giving my life a shake-up had already given me a glimpse of the old Fearne. The Fearne who knew how to be happy. The Fearne who’d also inadvertently called a flower school looking for a beginner’s workshop and had found herself handing over her credit card details for a five-day professional floristry course …

  A course which was about to start any moment. There were several cars already filling the driveway and I wondered if I was the last one to arrive.

  The cottage door opened and a woman wearing a long grey apron waved energetically to me.

  ‘I’m Fiona and you must be Fearne,’ she said, bustling over to shake my hand as I got out of the car. ‘Come along, everyone’s here and chomping at the bit to get cracking.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said, following her to the front door. ‘Before we join the others, can I just reiterate that I have no plans to be a professional florist, this is just a hobby. So I might not be as good as the others.’

  Fiona’s eyes sparkled. ‘All my students enjoy themselves, they just happen to learn a great deal at the same time. And you never know, you might surprise yourself.’

  I smiled. This was going to be fun, and since normally at this time on a Monday morning I’d be catching up with my research contacts in south east Asia, I had already surprised myself.

  Following my tutor, I took my first step into Wisteria Cottage. The scent of fresh flowers drew me in. I was doing it, I thought, I’d stepped away from my ordinary life to do something which would make me happy. I was completely out of my comfort zone; Freddie would be proud.

  Fiona led me along a hallway into a bright and airy studio dominated by a long wooden table. At one end, wide glass doors looked out into the pretty cottage garden and at the other was a workbench covered with tall buckets full of flowers. Bending over the flowers, mugs in hands, were the other three students.

  ‘Karen, Claire, Harriet,’ announced Fiona, gesturing to each of the women in turn. ‘Meet Fearne. Now, there’s a lot of theory to get through this morning, so Fearne, help yourself to coffee, take a seat, everyone and we’ll begin.’

  Two hours later my head was spinning with everything I’d learned and so far, we hadn’t even touched a single petal. I’d learned about the giant flower markets in Holland and how to order from them, I’d heard about gerberas from Kenya, carnations from Columbia and roses from Ecuador, I’d discovered how to ‘condition’ flowers to keep them at their peak. And we’d discussed the difference between supermarket flowers and their superior counterparts at the high street florist.

  Everyone else looked similarly overwhelmed. Karen and Claire, two sisters from Cheshire with grown up children of their own, were pooling their resources to open up a florist’s shop in the village where they lived now.

  Harriet, who looked about my age, had made copious notes in the pad we’d each been given. She’d done flowers for a few weddings as a hobby, she admitted but was planning on turning it into a full-time career.

  Fiona disappeared into the kitchen to prepare something for lunch, leaving us a container each and instructions to select flowers for our first arrangement: a table decoration using flower foam. Harriet and I headed straight for the buckets of roses, while the sisters were still finishing their notes.

  ‘Some flowers die if you don’t keep them cool enough, some die if you don’t keep them warm enough. Not in a draught, not in direct sunlight,’ said Karen with a groan. ‘At this rate the only place in our shop suitable for storing flowers will be the loo.’

  ‘You and your weak bladder can keep them company then,’ said Claire, scratching her head with her pen. ‘But you make a good point. It seems the biggest challenge in floristry is preventing premature death of the flowers.’

  I smiled to myself as a long-forgotten memory popped into my head.

  ‘It’s a race against time,’ Granny used to say, hunched over the steering wheel as we’d bombed along country lanes in her flower van, the chiffon-pink sky heralding the dawn of another perfect day. ‘From the moment we set up the flower stall, these blooms are starting to decline. It’s my job to flog them before they keel over. Or else it’s butter sandwiches for supper.’

  ‘And did she say don’t use bleach to clean the buckets or do?’ said Karen, peering over her sister’s shoulder. ‘My poor menopausal brain has forgotten already.’

  ‘Do,’ I said. ‘Unless the bucket is for roses. Then don’t. Roses hate bleach.’

  ‘Arrgh,’ said Claire, flinging her pen down. ‘We’re doomed.’

  ‘It’s only our first morning,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it’ll all make more sense by the end of the week.’

  ‘It’ll have to,’ said Karen, getting to her feet. ‘Come on Claire, leave the details. We can always google it if we need to know anything. Let’s get onto the nice bit.’

  ‘I don’t know about nice,’ said Claire, popping a huge sprig of eucalyptus followed by a fistful of sweet williams in her container. ‘I’m all fingers and thumbs when it comes to anything creative.’

  Becoming a florist seemed an odd choice in that case, I thought.

  ‘When do you think you’ll open the shop?’ Harriet asked. She chose three beautiful lilac roses and placed them reverently into her container.

  ‘Six weeks,’ the women answered in unison. ‘We’ve already signed the lease.’

  There was a moment of stunned silence broken by Fiona’s footsteps tapping along the tiled corridor.

  ‘Now,’ our tutor said brightly. ‘How are you getting on? Does anyone need anything special?’

  ‘A miracle?’ sai
d Karen hopefully and we all laughed.

  The rest of the week flew by and soon it was Friday. Not only did I make three new friends, I made every sort of flower arrangement a modern florist would ever need, from handtied bouquets to bridesmaids’ posies, corsages to headbands and, as a team, we even decorated a moongate which was a huge metal hoop used at weddings. The moongate would be used at the wedding show that Fiona was exhibiting at the following weekend, but we had been able to take the rest of our handiwork home with us. There were beautiful arrangements in every room of my little house now and I could scarcely keep the smile from my face as I walked from room to room. I loved every second of the week; the freedom, the instant beauty of our creations, the satisfaction of seeing my ideas coming to life and the sense of peace which came over me while I was concentrating on my work. And socialising felt good and as the week progressed, I could feel a bit of the old Fearne coming back.

  I had no plans for the following week, but it would have to be pretty spectacular to beat the first week of my sabbatical. Maybe I should add something new to my happy list, or maybe I’d book a trip to Holland and visit the world’s biggest flower market myself? Who knew; the world was my oyster.

  As the last day was coming to an end, Fiona brought tea and cakes into the studio to have while we were finishing off our contemporary designs. Harriet’s was the best. She was the undisputed star pupil of the week. She’d created an asymmetric structure of twisted willow, stargazer lilies and glossy dark green leaves. Any bride who picked Harriet to do her wedding flowers was in for a treat. Claire had decided that she was going to let Karen do the lion’s share of the flower arranging after discovering her clumsy fingers would cost them a fortune in snapped stems and bruised blooms.

  I’d gone for a white theme, calla lilies and hydrangea with a delicate arc of steel grass giving it an architectural feel. I was finishing it off with a sheaf of grass tied around the vase in a bow.

  ‘That is stunning,’ said Fiona, stepping around my arrangement and checking it out from every aspect. ‘Your best yet. You had a natural gift for floristry when you began on Monday, but now your talents are shining through. Well done.’

  The other women gave me a round of applause.

  ‘I think it’s a bit lumpy and I should have trimmed the lilies more, but thank you.’ I felt my cheeks colour with everyone’s attention on me. But for once I didn’t feel the need to hide away or escape from view, or brace myself for a well-meaning comment which would lead on to how well I was doing following Freddie’s death.

  ‘Your shoulders were wedged up by your ears when you arrived on Monday,’ Claire pointed out. ‘And now you are glowing and relaxed.’

  ‘You’re lit up from within, Fearne.’ Harriet looked up from her creation and tucked her hair behind her ears. ‘I think flowers are sunshine for the soul.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ I replied softly.

  Maybe, I realised with a surge of hope, maybe this really was the start of a new phase in my life. Could it really be that simple? The kindness reflected back at me warmed my heart and I was going to miss the three of them. Happy tears welled up in my eyes and I turned away to blink them back.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Claire, gesticulating at her sister. ‘Write that down, Karen. We can have that on a blackboard outside the shop.’

  We all laughed and I sent a silent thanks to Claire for changing the subject.

  Over the course, we’d opened up to each other a little more each day and yesterday I’d told them about losing my brother and the letter I’d found over a decade after he’d written it. I’d been worried that it would open the floodgates for everyone else’s personal bereavement stories, something which I’d struggled to cope with since losing Freddie. But to my delight the thing everyone wanted to talk about was my happy list and what they would put on theirs.

  It was almost time to leave. We’d taken hundreds of photographs of our flower creations in Fiona’s studio and even outside in her pretty cottage garden and now, reluctant to leave, we were swapping numbers and Facebook names.

  ‘I’m so glad you managed to persuade me to attend the week-long course instead of one afternoon workshop,’ I said, taking my apron off for the final time. ‘It’s been a wonderful experience.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. It’s called upselling,’ said Fiona with a naughty giggle. ‘The secret weapon in a florist’s arsenal. Never push a customer to spend more than they can afford. Just give them some options, make it easy for them to increase their budget if they want to.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Karen with a sly smile. ‘But there are a lot of elderly people who live in our village. And ours will be the only shop for miles. We’ve got to stock a bit of everything: milk, bread, stamps—’

  ‘And wine,’ Claire put in. ‘All the essentials.’

  ‘So our shop will be more than a florist,’ Karen continued. ‘It’ll be the hub of the community, we hope.’

  ‘What about you, Harriet?’ Fiona asked, as we filed outside to our cars. ‘What’s next for you?’

  ‘My sister is getting married here,’ she replied, getting her phone out to show us a photo of the venue. ‘So I’ve offered to do her flowers to give me some more experience. And then, I hope to do as many weddings as possible. My wedding day was the best day of my life and I want to help other brides have the day of their dreams just like I did. The cake, the dress, the flowers are the holy trinity of things people remember most about a wedding. I want to create flowers that no one will forget.’

  I gave her an encouraging smile. ‘I’m sure you will.’

  ‘That’s another good one,’ Claire nudged her sister. ‘You can put that on the business cards.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Karen, scribbling Harriet’s wise words on the back of her hand with a biro. ‘If your wedding business goes tits up, you can always go into writing motivational slogans.’

  Harriet laughed. ‘I think that’s a compliment.’

  ‘If that’s your business ethos, Harriet, then I don’t see how you can possibly fail,’ I said, feeling proud of them all. ‘All of you have such good intentions for your floral skills. I’ve only done this course to make myself happy. I feel a bit selfish.’

  ‘Absolutely nothing wrong with that,’ said Fiona firmly. ‘As Oscar Wilde once said, “A flower blossoms for its own joy” and yes, Claire, you can have that one as well.’

  We all hugged goodbye after that. Karen and Claire drove off first, followed by Harriet. As I started the engine in mine, Fiona knocked on the glass and gestured for me to open the window.

  ‘I hope you will cultivate your new skills, experiment with different containers and practise, practise, practise until you’re spiralling stems for a hand-tied bouquet in your sleep.’

  I gave her a lopsided smile. ‘I will. I’ve learned so much this week, but I’ve only scratched the surface and I want to keep improving.’

  ‘We all carry on learning our whole lives,’ she replied. ‘But flowers have a way of making people smile, even when a project seems impossible. All you have to do is let the flowers do the talking and have a little faith.’

  I drove back home feeling happier than I’d done in months. Fiona was right. Flowers had already made me smile and life seemed a lot brighter for it.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Over here!’ Laura waved to me across the crowds outside the busy café. I waved back and headed over to where she and Scamp were waiting at the only empty table.

  It was Saturday, the day after the flower course had finished and much as I loved having flowers in every room, I decided to share the love. Scamp and I had already dropped in on Ethel and given her a jug arrangement for her room and then we’d called at Hamish and Laura’s house to give them one of the large bouquets for the dining table. I’d found Laura on her own, researching recipes for simnel cake ready for Easter weekend next week.

  Hamish was stranded in Paris after a fire in the Channel Tunnel had delayed all the trains back to
the UK. And as she was on her own, I’d suggested a walk in the sunshine to the nearest café.

  ‘One chai latte and a cinnamon bun for you,’ I said, setting the tray down. ‘Tea and a giant shortbread biscuit for me.’

  Scamp’s ears pricked up at the ‘b’ word.

  ‘Of course I didn’t forget you.’ I took a Dentastix out of my bag, which the vet had suggested might help his antisocial breath, and held it out to him.

  He eyed it glumly before ignoring it and slumping under the table next to it in disappointment.

  ‘Sorry, mate, you can sulk all you like,’ I said sticking it back in my bag. ‘But the honeymoon period is over, I’ve got to be a responsible dog owner now I’m providing your forever home.’

  ‘That’s how I feel about living with Hamish,’ said Laura.

  ‘Like a sulky dog?’ I said, accidentally-on-purpose knocking a chunk of my shortbread off my plate. Scamp hoovered it up before it hit the floor. Well, he was twelve years old, what harm could it do?

  ‘Haha,’ she said drily. ‘No, the honeymoon period bit. It still feels like I’m playing house, and the food he cooks! Oh my word! I think I’ve put on half a stone since moving in with him.’

  ‘In ten days?’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s some going. What’s he doing, force-feeding you?’

  Laura eyes softened dreamily. ‘He’s cherishing me. That’s what it is, I feel cherished. And content. I love it.’

  ‘It shows,’ I said. ‘You look radiant. I’m happy for you. I’d have been happy for you months ago if you’d told me sooner.’

  ‘Really?’ She gave me a quizzical look.

  ‘OK, perhaps I’d have still behaved like a spoiled brat,’ I admitted, cringing at my full-on strop at the spa. ‘But let’s put that behind us. I’m glad it’s out in the open. Just don’t forget your best friend. We can do this whenever you’re at a loose end. I’m happy to fill the Hamish-shaped hole in your weekend.’