Episode Three - BST

Episode Three - the one where I chat about time keeping and the clocks going back! You can find this episode wherever you get your podcasts. 

 

Below is the script for this episode.

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Fareham Florist Pod. 

Go on — get yourself a cuppa, a biscuit, or if you’re feeling particularly indulgent today, a nice slice of cake. Settle in somewhere comfortable, because today’s story… well, it’s one of those moments in life where you stop, blink twice, and wonder whether the universe has decided to test you just a little bit more than usual.

I’m your host, Sarah, and this is episode three. Already; time really does fly. I’m the co-owner of Fareham Florist, a small, independent florist on the outskirts of a little town on teh south coast of the uk, called… yep, yo’ve guessed it, Fareham. 

Our shop is Small enough that you can walk through it in under an hour, familiar enough that most locals know me by name, and just busy enough that every day brings its own little adventure.

Today’s episode is about one of those adventures — or misadventures — that starts off small, quiet, barely noticeable… like the faint rumble of distant thunder. then it grows, gathers speed, gathers emotional momentum, and before you know it, you’re standing in the middle of a full-blown storm you never saw coming. Only in this case, the storm wasn’t made of lightning or rain — it was made of phone calls. Eleven of them. From one single human being.

Before we get to the avalanche of voicemails, let me paint the scene.

It’s not often — and I mean really not often — that I arrive at work just before opening. My usual routine is clockwork. Two hours early. Rain, shine, sleet, frost, or an unexpected plague of locusts — I’m there. Two hours gives me breathing space. It allows me to enjoy that peaceful pre-opening quiet: no phones, no walk-ins, no deliveries, no last-minute panics. Just me, my cold cup of tea, the flowers, and the gentle hum of the building waking up.

Those early hours are sacred. They are the calm before the daily whirlwind of orders, customers, consultations, paperwork, and the occasional chaos that comes with running a small independent shop. They’re also the hours when I feel most myself — centred, steady, prepared.

 this particular Monday though…

Ah, this Monday had other plans for me.

Life, as it often does, had given me a list of errands that couldn’t be ignored. One thing after another: a prescription to collect, a parcel to drop off, a form to hand in, and a stop that I foolishly thought would take “just five minutes” — which of course took fifteen. By the time I looked at the clock, my calm two-hour buffer had evaporated, and I was pulling up outside with mere minutes to spare.

Already that alone puts me on edge. It feels like stepping into the day halfway through a race I never signed up for.

I grabbed my keys, hurried inside, flicked on the lights, and took a deep breath, ready to salvage what remained of my morning quiet.

But the universe, it seemed, had something else waiting for me.

As I walked through to the office — still shrugging off my coat, mentally organising my morning — my eyes landed on the answering machine.

Flashing.
Bright.
Insistent.
Like a tiny lighthouse signalling danger.

Now, usually, a flashing light means one message. Two at most on a busy day. A delayed delivery, a customer checking on an order, someone calling while I was  with a customer — nothing alarming

But this light… the speed of the flash felt different. Almost urgent.
A sort of tap-tap-tap that suggested, “Brace yourself.”

I pressed the button.
The display lit up.

Eleven messages.
From the same number.
All within the hour before I arrived.

And that wasn’t even the full story.
My mobile (the business one) also showed multiple missed calls. Same number. Same obsessive frequency.

All within about sixty minutes.
Some spaced just seconds apart.

For a brief moment, I wondered if there had been some kind of emergency — someone desperately trying to reach a florist for something truly urgent, something emotionally heavy. I’ve had calls like that before: last-minute funeral flowers due to miscommunication, sudden hospital admissions, unexpected losses. Floristry is deeply entwined with the major emotional moments of life — joy, love, grief, remembrance — so intense calls aren’t unusual.

But eleven?
Eleven escalating voicemails?

That was… new.

I hit the playback button.

The first message was calm. Polite.
A perfectly ordinary customer enquiry. The sort of message that makes you think, Oh good, this won’t take long to sort.

“Hello, please call me back when you get this.”

Kind tone. No tension. No urgency. A simple request.

Then message two:
A touch more impatience. Still reasonable, though.

Message three:
A hint of frustration, like someone tapping their foot.

Message four:
A noticeable tone shift — that uptight pitch people get when they’ve convinced themselves they’ve been wronged.

Message five:
A sigh before speaking. A classic sign that the speaker believes you are the problem.

Message six:
Full irritation. That clipped, sharp delivery where every syllable feels like it’s been filed into a weapon.

Message seven:
He begins to speculate about why we might not be answering:
“Are you refusing to take calls? Are you ignoring customers?”

Ah, the creative phase.

Message eight:
He begins accusing the business of unprofessionalism.

Message nine:
Genuine fury now. Raised voice. Audible indignation.

Message ten:
A near-outright rant.

Message eleven…
A masterpiece.

If Shakespeare had written monologues for impatient modern consumers, this would have been Act III.

"I've been calling since the minute you opened. If you weren't going to be there to take phone calls, maybe you should have made it clear on your outgoing message or put something on your website so your customers would know. I can't believe you've been with other customers or too busy to answer for almost an hour. What kind of business are you running?"

He delivered it with such energy, such theatrical tension, that I half expected a drumroll at the end.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the machine.
There are only so many times you can listen to someone progressively lose their mind at you before you start questioning reality.

Part of me — the human part — wanted to roll my eyes so hard they’d disappear into another dimension.
Part of me wanted to laugh.
And part of me, the professional florist who deals with people at their best and worst, knew what I had to do.

I had to call him back.

Even though I knew exactly how this would go.

I dialled the number.
The phone rang once — he was clearly waiting by it like a cat by a mouse hole — and he answered.

Before he could launch into another tirade, I introduced myself with my most peaceful, steady, diplomatic voice:

“Good morning. This is Sarah from Fareham Florist. I’m calling you back regarding your messages. I apologise for not answering earlier, but the shop doesn’t open until 9 am, and I’ve only just arrived. As I am sure you are aware it is just before nine now.”

Calm. Clear. Professional.
I could have been reading the terms and conditions of a cloud subscription service.

There was a pause — the kind that lasts only half a second, but you can hear the entire emotional spectrum travel through someone’s soul.

Then he erupted.

“I’ve been calling since NINE A.M.!”

He practically shouted it down the line.

And then —
As quickly as the storm arrived, it passed.

Because something clicked in his brain.
You could hear the gears turning.
You could hear the realisation entering like a cold draft under a door.

He inhaled.
He exhaled.
And then, in a completely different voice — soft, gentle, genuinely apologetic — he said:

“Oh my dear… I am so very sorry. The clocks went back at the weekend, didn’t they?”

Yes.
Yes, they did.

And in that one hour, this poor man had travelled through all seven stages of emotional chaos:

1. Polite optimism
2. Mild impatience
3. Irritation
4. Suspicion
5. Accusation
6. Outrage
7. Realisation and regret

All because of the end of daylight saving time.

All because his clock — whether on his wall, his phone, or simply in his mind — had betrayed him.

The absurdity of it was almost poetic.

I confirmed gently, “Yes, they did, sir.”

And in that one sentence, the entire situation transformed.

All the frustration, all the indignation, all the fury that he had been building up like emotional compost… evaporated.

He apologised again.
And again.
then once more, for good measure.

After the call ended, I sat back to let the moment wash over me.
There is something fascinating about how quickly misunderstandings can escalate — and how quickly they can dissolve with just one piece of missing information.

It made me think.

How often do we get wound up over things completely outside our control?

How often do we create entire narratives in our heads, convinced we know exactly what’s happening, only to discover later that we were wrong?

How often do we forget that there are reasonable explanations for things which frustrate us?

And how often do we let impatience turn us into versions of ourselves that we wouldn’t exactly brag about?

This man didn’t wake up intending to be rude.

He didn’t set out to verbally attack a florist first thing on a Monday morning.

He was just a human being operating under the wrong assumption — the wrong time — and his frustration spiralled.

It could easily have gone differently.
If I had snapped back.
If I had matched his tone.
If I had let my own irritation speak instead of my professionalism.

But one calm response…
One gentle explanation…
One reminder about the clocks going back…

And suddenly the narrative unraveled, revealing the misunderstanding beneath.

There’s something surprisingly beautiful about that.

This little incident reinforced some truths I think we all need reminding of:

• People aren’t always angry at you — sometimes they’re angry at a misunderstanding.
• Time changes can throw the entire population into temporary chaos.
• Eleven voicemails does not always mean the world is ending.
• It’s possible to go from villain to apologetic lamb in the space of one sentence.
• And perhaps most importantly: patience is rarely wasted.

It also reminded me to approach small explosions of human behavior with curiosity rather than defensiveness.
Because behind every outburst, there is a reason — even if that reason is simply forgetting about the clocks.

So that was my Monday:
A morning that began with errands, rushed footsteps, and a flashing answering machine…
and ended with a very sheepish apology from a man who had simply outsmarted himself with daylight saving time.

Nothing dramatic.
Nothing earth-shattering.
Just one of those funny little human moments that we can all laugh about later.

It stayed with me all day, not because it was stressful — though it certainly had its moments — but because it was such a perfect reminder of how easily misunderstandings creep into our daily lives.

And how easily they can be cleared with a little patience.

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode.
I hope it brought you a smile, or at least made you feel slightly better about any chaotic mornings you’ve had recently.

And remember…

Before frustration takes over,
before assumptions start building,
before you decide a florist is ignoring you…

Check the clocks.

 Time, after all, has a sneaky way of playing tricks on us.

Until next time — stay calm, stay kind, stay patient, and take each little moment of chaos with a pinch of humour.

 Thank you so much for joining me as I've navigated my way through this very first podcast. I really hope you'll stick around and join me for the rest of the journey. If you have enjoyed this episode and I really hope that you have, please feel free to share, subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcast. This can make a really huge difference and helps others to find us. I appreciate all feedback, good and bad, but if leave in negative feedback, please keep it constructive and be kind. I'm a florist after all. 
 
You can also find us and share with everyone on the usual social media sites. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blue Sky and any others which may pop up in between. Just look for Fareham Florist Pod.. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have regarding any of the tales and or experiences that I've shared, or to do with just being a general working florist. You can reach me via email. The address is farehamfloristpod@duck.com 
 
Are you a florist with your own stories, your own experiences that you would like me to share for you? If you are, I would love to hear from you. You can reach me via email. The address is farehamfloristpod@duck.com or drop me a WhatsApp on 073 671 87685. Let me know if you would like me to keep you anonymous. If you would like me to give your business a mention, whether you run a florist, butcher, baker, or even a candlestick maker, I'm more than happy to do so providing your business is registered and trading legally. As a thank you for putting your details out there and hopefully generating some new business for you, it would be appreciated if you would be kind enough to make a donation to one of our nominated charities. These can be found on the webpage www.Fareham Florist Pod.co.uk.