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ARIEL:

How long have you been working here for?

Couple of years two years…

And how did you get started?

Well, basically, I am a florist. All of my life with a family background growerS in Argentina. I grew up in a flow market in Buenos Aires, but I opened my own shop, in the pandemic I lost my job..

I am in the market because the market is a point for any florist.

What brought you to London?

No, I just came for the world cup in Germany in 2006, then I get lost in Europe, i think england is a good country to live, I learnt English, and I am a florist I love this world

What's your favorite thing about being a florist?

Well being in contact with the flowers, absorbing this frequency. It's very tireless. It's not hard because I think any florists love their job, so it's not hard when you love something, but it's tireless. You spend many hours, more than basically 16 hours a day, 15 hours.
Because when I finish here, I go to Oxford, I start to work in my place with flowers I get from here. So I have my own shop in Oxford.

What does your schedule look like on a daily basis?

everyday basically coming here in the morning driving 1 hour, help here and choose my flowers, my plants and then back driving back 1 hour or more because traffic, and I keep going all day working I don't know crazy because it's my own business so I care more. So yes, it’s tireless,  yes I don't know why, it’s crazy, i get my coffee, redbull… but also the people are lovely, In my town everyone is happy with the flower shop, it’s different if you get flowers from the supermarket the same quality it's boring, They got this tesco so any market they got always the same varieties of  flowers and the quality is little bit different because it's cheaper and I think this market is if you want to be a florist the place where you have to come and you will see everyone that works with flowers and plants are really happy and calm. Florists are very connected with emotions. Funerals, new births, anniversaries, lovers… there’s always a good occasion to give flowers. It's a very opportunistic business. We catch any opportunity. Christmas, Valentine's, Mother's Day, Easter, anything.. Even now with the coronation, I think people will buy flowers. Or even when the queen passed away as well.  During the pandemic lot of flowers…  Yes, it's a good business. Multimillion dollar business all over the world. The flowers industry is the top ten I think in commodities all around the world. It's crazy, the amount of money, globally,… billions. Any country produces flowers; South America, Colombia, Holland. Any country got their own flowers. It's like fruit and veg.
This market, Covent Garden Flower Market, It was an old market in another place than it is now, in Covent Garden. You can find videos of the move, it’s funny because you can see the faces of the sellers…

What is your favorite flower?

My favorite flower is Gerbera. I’ll show you which one. Because my mother, when she get married, she wore a yellow dress with gerberas for the crown and the bouquet as well. She was hippie, so colorful flowers.. She was different and didn’t want to wear white. And I’ve seen the pictures and obviously I’m a florist so this is my favorite, it’s meaningful. All the flowers are my favorite, you can see the beauty in all of them

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BOB:

How long have you been working here for?

20 years

And how did you get started?

I just came and helped and then I stayed.

What does your day to day look like?

Well, I only do three days now, but it's a long day. We start about one in the morning and finish probably most days. Twelve ish 1112, so we get long days. But the flowers are lovely, so it's all part of the fun.

What is your favorite part of this job?

Just the lovely flowers, I just like the aesthetics of it.

What’s your favorite flower?

My favorite flower, lily of the Valley is my favorite flower.

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LARA:

How long have you been working here?

I’ve actually only been working here about 8 months, in this market. But before, I was a florist for about 7 years.

How did you get into this business?

I did art at uni, and it was quite difficult to get a job after that. So I just did a completely random course, and it was floristry that I picked, and then went back to college after uni, did that and started working again. Then when I wanted to leave floristry, this was my supplier and they scouted me for a job.

What does your day to day look like?

Well its more of a Night to night haha! We start between 2 and 3 everyday and we come in and some of they guys have already got here and unloaded all the trolleys that come in from Holland.. We then arrange everyone’s orders that have preordered with us., organize and send those out, get them delivered across London. Then people will be placing the orders so we’ll be on the phone with Holland to sort out the next day and future orders and then it’s normally just the general public. then finish at about 10, and it’s back home to bed!

How busy does it usually get?

It completely ranges throughout the year. Every single peak in the floristry calendar ( valentine’s day, mother’s day, christmas… ) Those days get much busier here, and weddings season of course. But every day changes as well. the busiest days tend to be Thursday and Saturday and that’s when quite a lot of the general public come in. And then even throughout the day we’ve got busy periods, in the early hours, the contract florists come in to collect their orders, and the people that live a bit further away than in london they come and collect their flowers for their shop, so that’s very early morning. Then there’s a bit of a dip at around 6 then come 8-9 it picks back up again when the general public comes in.

What’s the work life balance like?

It’s actually okay. When I was a florist before, we did longer hours. that started early, not all florists start really early, but in the section I was in, we did. Everyone does heir sleep pattern quite differently, some people go home at 10 and have a couple hours of sleep then you’ve got the whole afternoon, early evening, then they get like 4 hours before coming into work. Some people do maybe 8 hours as soon as they get home from here and then they’ve got the whole evening.. So it just depends what you want to do. I normally mix it up depending on what my plans are, but yeah it’s actually great.

This time a year its harder to fall asleep if you want to during the day, since its bright earlier, but its really nice because then you can have the evenings afr
have the evenings, afternoon in the doing whatever you want to do in the daylight. Whereas in winter people have less plans It's easier to sleep at night Well in the day because it's dark and then yeah.

Do you get a lot of traffic in the winter?

Yeah, We end up normally working six days a week all of November and December because it's Christmas. It's actually the busiest time. It's bonkers. It's really good fun. It's amazing.

What is your favorite part of this job?

The people I work with, whether it's people on this stand or my customers or everything. So lots of us will have florists or companies or whatever that we work with daily and get their orders ready daily. It's wicked. It's like you don't work, you've just got a group of people, you know, every day. When I first started, I was like really worried. I was like, oh, I don't want to have to do any networking or whatever to try and get customers. But it's not like that at all. Some days I'll go home and I'd be like, what have I done today? Oh yeah, I've laughed all day with people I know,   but actually you've been at work selling product. It's like amazing. That's definitely the best.

What’s your favorite flower?

Mine's gladiolai. Yeah, it's not a very popular one to be people's favorite because it's pretty cheap. People think it's quite old fashioned and it's quite cheap. It's like someone like an incarnation. I quite like carnations they're coming back into fashion, but you get like loads of like when they open, you get so many flowers on it.
It's so cool and in black. That's my favorite. You can get it for like 60 p and then the supermarkets are a lot shorter and skinnier, but you can get them for like a couple of quid for a big bunch. It's so good.

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TOM:

How long have you been coming to this market for?

I’ve worked here 43 years.

How did you get started here?

My dad worked here.

What does you day to day look like here?

Well I only work part time now. obviously, I think the market’s changed over the years, it’s not as busy as it used to be, since the internets taken over…
I’ve done numerous jobs here; I’ve been salesman, buyer, grower.

What is your favorite part of being in the market?

The atmosphere. It used to be a lot better when it was a lot busier, but its just- its a way of life, obviously got used to the hours.. and obviously when you’ve been working with people who have also been working here for 40 odd years, its kind of a little family really.

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PAUL:

How long have you been coming to the market for?

How long have I been coming? Since I was a kid. The donkey’s years…

How did you get started in this business?

My family had a stand in here originally, for over 100 years… We were growers out in Essex. Then I sublet my stand to this firm, in the late 80s and I started working from about 5 years ago

What does your day to day look like here?

Early, I would say. I get up at the latest at 1:40 (twenty to two) in the morning, and we finish at about 10, half 10. But I love it

Does it get quite crowded? Are there usually a lot of people?

Saturdays are quite, Saturdays are quite dead. Got about 60 of these trolleys that come in on Monday and on Tuesday morning, and we’ve got deliveries all through the week. But especially on a bank holiday, we want to clear right out, we don’t want to leave things out over the bank holiday cause it will be dark,  they will go yellow and go off.
We finish at 9oclock here on a Saturday, so everything here will be in the dark until the lights come up on Tuesday morning.

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ariel interview audio