Beresfield Flower Delivery, Same Day to Home or Chapel

You have a funeral notice that says Newcastle Memorial Park, a start time and not much else. Flowers for the service go to the chapel as funeral flowers; flowers for the family go to the house a day or two later, as sympathy flowers for home. Siobhan and I drove sympathy flowers out to Tweed Heads Lawn Cemetery ourselves in the shop years and learned fast that a service runs to the minute. Put the chapel, the time and the funeral director in the notes. The card can be short: "Thinking of you all, with love."

Anna's call: whites and creams with plenty of green read right in a chapel of almost any faith. If the family has Chinese or Vietnamese heritage, keep red out of it entirely.

The birthday flowers, or celebration flowers for a new job, are going to work, and you have a company name and a street. Office or shop floor, reception usually signs for them and calls the person up. Put the unit and a front-desk number in the notes; a lot of the units along Weakleys Drive look alike from the road. I learned workplace deliveries in 2007 on Ozone Street in Chinderah, carrying pink gerberas through a roller door past a row of blokes in hi-vis. The whole floor stopped. She walked them back past every one of them, slowly.

Aircon and fluorescent light are hard on a desk bunch. Carnations and chrysanthemums shrug off the dry air, and roses do beautifully moved to the coolest corner, off the desk.

The text said Maitland Hospital, or maybe John Hunter, and a ward number you are not sure is still right. If they are home in a day or two, send get well flowers to the house. For a longer stay, in our experience the flowers go to the front desk or the ward clerk, at Maitland Hospital on Metford Road and at John Hunter alike, and staff take them up anywhere from half an hour to a few hours later. Full name and ward in the notes. "Thinking of you. Get home soon." is plenty for the card.

Anna, on the bedside

Wards are small and often shared. A boxed hospital arrangement needs no vase, and unscented stems keep the peace with the next bed: Asiatic lilies, gerberas, chrysanthemums.

Lots of orders do not fit a heading, and not knowing is allowed. My first ever flower call, at the Kingscliff shop in 2007, a woman asked me three quick questions and I told her to hang on while I checked with my wife.

Anna's pick

A mixed bunch in the colour they wear most, with a rose or two at the centre. Colour is what people remember. If you have no idea, pink with white works at any age and in any room.