The photograph this week is of the boot full of flowers I collected on Wednesday night from 2 corporate events in town. The first pick up was from a PwC event at The Glaziers Hall at London Bridge which gave me a unique opportunity to drive through a deserted borough market at 11.00 pm and the second, following a manic dash through a Christmas light festooned central London, gave me a glimpse into another world at The Mandrake on Newman Street, WC1. Expedia describes The Mandrake as a luxury lifestyle hotel with vibrant interiors and a carefully curated private art collection which on Wednesday night was hosting the Perfume Store’s Christmas dinner and left me wishing that I was at least 20 years younger! I left with armfuls of gorgeous flowers from the Holland Park florist Liana Verderocce and the fragrance in the car as I drove home was glorious. On Thursday I collected the donated coats that my younger daughter Ella had organised from staff and pupils at her secondary school, JCoSS bringing our donation so far to 140 for Colindale Food Bank. On Black Friday I was back in town to collect stunning pots of flowers from another PwC event, this time at The Royal Lancaster Hotel at Hyde Park. I love visiting this hotel it’s a 60’s icon and reminds me of my visits to London as a child when my family would stay at the nearby London Elizabeth Hotel. Traffic was surprisingly light leaving London but when I turned on Radio 5 in the car I realised why as it was England’s incredibly dull match against USA - I shouldn’t have believed the hype! Have a great week. Ursula

With just 5 weeks left to Christmas things are really beginning to ramp up. Next week I’m driving into town on Wednesday and Friday evening to collect flowers from 2 PWC corporate dinners and a celebrity bash at the Mandrake Hotel. I honestly don’t think that I’m going to be able to get all of Wednesday’s booty in my car and I’m rather hoping that my landlord, Sparklight might be able to help out with the loan of one of his vans! On Thursday I received a donation of 120 tulip bulbs from Smith & Munson, these bulbs are going to be given to Year 4 pupils from the local primary school, Cromer Road, to grow to enter in New Barnet Amateur Gardeners annual Spring Show on April 1st. Maria who is Chair of New Barnet Amateur Gardeners has prepared crib sheets, plant pots and compost to distribute to the school but should you have any 18cm tall x 13cm wide plant pots hanging round I’d happily take them off your hands. I installed 3 more window boxes at New Barnet Railway Station yesterday morning and the feedback from commuters has been absolutely phenomenal and just what I hoped for. The window box in the photograph was created by Alexander who’s been doing his DofE volunteering with us for the past few months and he’s been fabulous - coping amazingly with absolutely everything we’ve asked him to do. We’ve collected over 100 coats so far which is great and very much appreciated by Colindale Food Bank, so thank you for your support.

Once Remembrance Day is over we’ll be full on into Christmas mode with a minor diversion for the World Cup and I’ve got Christmas wreath workshops booked in from Arkley to Tottenham. On Thursday I used anemones and poppies from ‘The Pinewoood Donation’ to create a Remembrance Day wreath with residents from Jewish Care’s Stella & Harry Freedman House for their Remembrance Day service this Sunday. I can honestly say it was one of the most enjoyable sessions I’ve held - as everyone mucked in sharing their World War II memories of evacuation and the blitz. In other news we’ve collected 95 warm coats for Colindale Foodbank this week owing to a mammoth donation from Chris Skinner and her choir mates who donated 89 of them. I even managed to persuade my younger daughter’s school to get involved with one of her friends even managing to create a TikTok for us! I don’t know if you remember but a few weeks ago we held a “surplus to soup event” with Chef Vee at the shop? Well great news it looks as though we’ve got the green light to hold them monthly at the New Barnet Community Association and our first one kicks off just before Christmas with a Christmas lunch cooked from food surplus. By the way last Saturday a friend of my sister, having a quiet weekend away in France, was flabbergasted to see me and my Tuesday morning Age UK group on national TV last Saturday night, I’ll post the link here when I have it. We’re a tiny part of a great programme with some wonderful recommendations for garden visits. Have a great week. Ursula

Bonfire night is over so it’s official we’re now preparing for Christmas! I received a generous and unexpected floral donation from Watford’s The Grove via Tablesetters of Borehamwood last week which enabled me to create firework pieces (see photo) with Jewish Care’s residents on Thursday and Friday. Unsurprisingly, prices are up at the wholesalers but I’m hoping this won’t affect our wreath workshop prices too much, we’re receiving fantastic support from Forty Hall who are supplying the vines that will make our sustainable wreath bases. It’s been a calm week which has allowed us to revisit New Barnet Station with window boxes for Platforms 1 & 2. We’re now receiving warm coat donations for Colindale Food Bank and I’d love to beat last year’s 350 so if you have any unwanted warm coats please drop them at the shop any afternoon Monday to Saturday. Have a great week. Ursula

Last week was all about the preparation and delivery of flowers on Friday for 2 weekend bar mitzvah’s and the maiden outing of our pink cherry blossom tree. I’m indebted to the patient and unflappable Chris Bentil who makes the best wing man and co-driver. We launched our annual warm coat collection for Colindale Foodbank on Friday as well and I’m hoping that we can beat last year’s figure of 350 - remarkably despite only launching it on Friday by Saturday morning we’d received 3! The Co-op funeral directors in High Barnet contacted me last week to see if I could make a funeral wreath for them. It’s for the funeral of a gentleman who will have no mourners except for the funeral directors on Tuesday. This is so utterly tragic and it’s my pleasure to create a wreath and ensure he has a good send off. Have a great week. Ursula

Yesterday was the first outing for The Flower Bank’s cherry tree to the wedding of Maria & Lubos at Christ Church in High Barnet. The tree’s branches were courtesy of “The Pinewood Donation”, it’s cardboard tube trunk from the plumbers on Lytton Road and the base an old parasol stand retrieved from a Hadley Wood skip by the ever resourceful Diane. Its construction was a team effort and I’d dreaded having to transport it but thanks to Becky’s support its move was simple and our glamorous tree is now available for weddings and bar mitzvah’s! I’m still totally exhausted after last week’s hectic week and I’ve been running on empty so thankfully this half term week my groups are on a break and I’m looking forward to catching up with some paperwork and the race for Number 10. So to quote from Chekhov’s, The Cherry Orchard “I must go directly, there’s no time to talk - I’ll say it in a couple of words” - have a great week. Ursula

On Monday it was World Mental Health Day and we ran our pilot “Surplus to Soup” kitchen with Chef Vee and Nicki from The WellbeingTeam at Barnet Council. Pumpkin and Watercress Soup were both on the menu, the weather was autumnal and sunny and we were thrilled at how well the day panned out. Our next step is to hold it indoors and we’re really lucky to have identified a premises, the New Barnet Community Association and then of course some funding. On Tuesday night I drove to the Barbican to pick up foliage from a Slack Technologies event I googled Slack to discover that it’s owned by the Canadian billionaire entrepreneur who Co-founded Flickr., Stewart Butterfield. I never get to go inside but just lurk at the loading bays where I meet the loveliest and most helpful people. On Thursday night I found myself at midnight driving to the Grand Sheraton Mayfair to pick up flowers from a PWC event. This time I made it all the way into the Art Deco ballroom where Harry Styles had recently been filming and took 26 table settings and 3 urns to my car via their kitchens. In less than 12 hours the same flowers were winging their way back into town, to Soho to be transformed by staff from Compass Pathways, a mental health care company, into hand tied bunches of flowers. It dawned on me that I haven’t worked in an office for a very long time and this was an ultra modern one on Broadwick Street near the John Snow pump. Within 90 minutes staff went from total floral novices to handing out bunches of flowers to members of the public - it was great to watch the pleasure that the Compass staff gained from these random acts of kindness! The message that I received loud and clear from World Mental Health Day was to be kind to yourself so I’m hoping to have tomorrow off for a bit of self care. Have a great week. Ursula

On Tuesday afternoon the Japanese film crew came to film at The Flower Bank. The advance party of Director, cameraman and Translator told me of their vision for the afternoon which was that Tatsumasa, the presenter, would find one of our mystery bouquets in a local park then come to find the shop. About an hour later Tatsumasa and crew turned up. Tatsumasa it transpired was originally Swedish but he’d moved to Japan to study to become a master gardener and then become naturalised. The TV career and influencing came after he set up his gardening practice as European Master Gardeners are a rare breed. Whilst here in the UK he had plans to check out dry stone walling in the Cotswolds as he wants to incorporate it in his designs. It was a lovely afternoon with scenes reminiscent of Blackadder’s “Infanta” sketch which made me smile. Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day and The Flower Bank is hosting a food surplus cook up club. Tomorrow is a pilot but we’d like to host a health and well-being cafe at least quarterly. Bringing people together through the medium of food is such a joy. To my LGGS school friends meeting next weekend apologies but I’m unable to attend but I’ll be thinking of you all. Have a great week. Ursula

On Friday I showed Network Rail’s community engagement officer, Andrew around the work we’ve managed to complete so far at New Barnet Railway Station and where we interacted with staff and commuters. We’d installed window boxes on Wednesday morning and staff said they’d had a huge impact with hundreds of compliments being paid, one couple even tracked me down to the shop to pass on their thanks and say how much their day had been brightened. Andrew was clearly blown away at the speed and scale of what what we’ve managed to achieved so far - I explained that the shop was drowning in flowers and the loan of the High Barnet basement for storage was finite so we needed to move quickly. Getting maximum enjoyment from the flowers by as many people as possible is my main aim. Tomorrow morning Clive and I are installing 5 more window boxes on Platform 3. Huge thanks to Alexander, Becky & Chieko for their help in painting and filling the boxes and to Adam (see picture) and Clive for making and installing the pallet window boxes. Last night, assuming I didn’t end up on the cutting room floor I should have appeared on French TV but my Instagram followers didn’t soar and I received no link from the French production company so assumed the worst. This Tuesday afternoon I have a Japanese TV crew coming to film. I met the producer, Hanako, pre-COVID at a Tottenham market and she felt sure we’d make a good story, COVID intervened but last week I received an email asking if we could resume where we’d left off. They want to film what we do and follow me as I leave a mystery bouquet (flower bomb) for someone to find and then interview that person, so, if anyone is around the New Barnet area on Tuesday afternoon and willing to be filmed please get in touch. Have a great week I’m off to give myself a preen/makeover. Ursula

This week there’s been a been a bumper surplus collection of flowers. I’ve benefitted from the supermarkets increased ordering for the Queen’s mourning and funeral. From Wednesday to Friday I collected no fewer than 10 groaning trolleys worth of flowers and struggled to get them all in the car. On Friday morning I met Rabbi Simon from Tzivos Hashem in the loading bay of Brent Cross Marks & Spencer so that he might receive flowers to decorate his synagogue for Rosh Hashanah. We meet most Friday mornings and the act of transferring the surplus flowers from shopping trolley to car boot always makes me chuckle as I imagine it’s a scene straight out of Get Carter or Lock, Stock. This week Rabbi Simon tried to impart a few musings on Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and the Queen’s funeral whilst we conducted our floral business. He said that that the theme of majesty or “malchiot” runs deeply through the New Year prayers but it’s the first time that any of us have really had the opportunity to think about and make a connection between God and what it means to be a Queen or Head of State and all the trappings that entails! Feeling slightly out of my depth or caffeine deprived I nodded but it was only after I left that it dawned on me what he was trying to say and I nearly crashed the car! For those of you who celebrate - Shana Tova and have a good week. Ursula