spring-summer 2020-21

Like many operations, Keeping Mum made an unexpected COVID pivot in 2020 - from its focus on advocating for unpaid family caregivers, to fundraising for Parkinson’s Victoria - the mob who provide such awesome services and support for people with PD and their families.

Our Very Casual Flower Delivery Service (VCFDS) ran across Spring 2020 and Summer 2021, bringing glorious home-grown roses to the masses (as long as they lived within the golden triangle of Melbs' western suburbs, Geelong and Colac), and kept the rose bushes in our family's garden plentiful and productive (insider tip: you gotta cut the flowers to grow more flowers).

Friends and fam got in touch to have a bouquet delivered to a loved one (or order for themselves). Key to the service was the doorstep handover to enable a chat (and maybe a cheeky COVID-safe cuppa). Turns out, an armful of fresh-cut roses wrapped in butcher’s paper totally warms people up to the unannounced ‘drop around’ - which has become very out of fashion these days, I’m sad to report.

If you weren’t home, we’d leave them in a safe, shaded spot and probably loiter in your front yard a bit longer than necessary because after lockdowns 1 and 2, it sure felt wickedly exhilarating to venture past people’s front gates (OK just me then...). 

Price was by donation, but $35-50 seems like the going rate for a medium-large bouquet that’s pure homegrown roses, and heavy enough that it gets a bit tiresome holding for too long. 

Well, you’ve just got to look at someone’s face when they open the fly screen door and see there’s a big bouquet of flowers coming their way. It’s the best job in the world delivering flowers.

Just as importantly, the flowers delivery service, together with our COVID care packages, helped raise $1,000 that we donated to Parkinson’s Victoria in January 2020, in memory of our Mum, Mary.