Same Day Flowers to Hexham NSW, at Their Work or Home

Their birthday falls on a work day, and work is a yard or a workshop, which is a nicer place for flowers to turn up than you'd think, because nobody there is expecting them. Put the business name, their full name and their mobile in the notes. In our experience someone on the front desk signs and the flowers wait inside, off the hot hardstand. If they're a driver and out on the road all day, send the flowers to their house instead. And flowers for a bloke are completely fine, by the way (our birthday flowers for him are made for exactly that).

The Bright Arrangement With Chocolates and the Native Arrangement With Chocolates both sit in wet foam, so either one is happy at reception. If the counter is anywhere near the workshop, go the Native: it's a protea and a pincushion, and proteas barely notice exhaust.

It's a big birthday or an anniversary lunch at Hexham Bowling Club on Old Maitland Road, you can't make it, and the whole family will be in one room, which is the best place for flowers to land. Add the function room, the start time and an organiser's mobile, because without a room name whoever is carrying the flowers goes looking. I found that out the hard way in 2008 at Kingscliff Beach Bowls Club, on the same street as our shop: I carried an eightieth birthday arrangement straight across the green in my work shoes until a very polite man in whites walked me off it. The flowers were fine. I wasn't.

Anna, on the lunch table

Keep table flowers low, so people can see each other across them. A celebration arrangement in foam carries its own water right through the speeches.

The notice says Sandgate Cemetery, which has its own chapel, and you can't be there. For funeral flowers at the chapel or the graveside, put the funeral director and the service time in the notes, and for a morning service, order the day before. Or send flowers to the house a few days later. Sending something never feels like enough, and the family remembers it anyway. On the card: "Thinking of you all, with love."

Anna's call: for the graveside, a wreath or a sheath, because a vase tips on soft grass. The White Lily & Rose Sheath lies flat on a casket in the chapel too, and white, cream and soft green sit quietly among the other tributes.

A thank-you to the mechanic who squeezed the ute in, a first week at a new job, the neighbour who minded the dog: plenty of orders aren't a birthday or a funeral, and some need no reason at all (just because covers those). Anna has a view on this one.

My pick is the Lovely Lilac & Lime Bunch. Its lisianthus open bud by bud across the week, and the lime balls are green trick, a carnation that goes a fortnight. Same rule as the yard: keep it away from a running engine.