IN terms of new business and personal background, Terry Jamieson enjoys an international perspective on life. Having returned to Scotland in 1983 after 30 years in South Africa where her father, an Edinburgh paediatrician, had worked as a GP, she set up a soft fruit and flower nursery in Yetholm (''our merchandise was collected by refrigerated trucks at 7am and rushed to Covent Garden''). Her husband put his financial career on hold to help establish the business.
Nowadays, early rising is still routine but involves a 6.30am visit to Edinburgh Flower Market. Now, Jamieson works from a 400-year-old converted cottage in Lasswade - headquarters for Posies By Post, her mail order business which dispatches fresh, seasonal arrangements around the world. Calls rain in from Singapore, Zaire, Moscow and Australia as well as the UK.
''Some orders arrive by fax during the night. A man rang the other day from Papua New Guineau and dictated a message to me for his wife to say he'd arrived safely,'' says Jamieson, who established South Africa's first multi-racial, children's nursery after dabbling in floral art and textile design.
Today, however, her time is dominated by flowers. Three rooms are dedicated to Posies By Post. The north-facing store room is awash with buckets of vivid lime buphirum, yellow pom pom santini, pink rosebuds, freesias and purple limonium as well as water retention gel and flower preservative (home-made to a secret recipe). Upstairs, the maid's room turned office houses computer, tissue paper, cards and plastic packaging. The place buzzes with activity as mother and daughter (22) create pictures with flowers. ''I don't do the '12 carnations, 6 rosebuds and gypsophila' kind of posy,'' says Jamieson. ''I aim to create a tapestry effect. I want people to notice something different each time they look.''
Behind the finished article (salad-bowl-sized at #15 or #18.50 and packed in a box designed by Jamieson) lies hard graft. On return from market, she launches into cutting, cleaning and preserving before starting to make up orders at 10am. At 3pm the Royal Mail arrives by arrangement to collect boxes. Then messages and addresses have to be written up for next day.
The idea was born five years ago when Jamieson's mother-in-law was in hospital and in receipt of bunches of flowers. ''I noticed how much more she appreciated it when I arranged them prettily with greenery.''
As I prepared to leave this hive of cottage industry, the phone rang. Another order. ''You lucky thing...I've got my winter boots on''...Jamieson was heard to say from a caller from Lake Como. The language of flowers is international.
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