Flowers for a birthday

Birthday flowers should arrive on the day, and that is mostly a matter of ordering the day before: choose the date at the checkout and the van brings them on it, or order before the cut-off for the same day if the date has crept up on you. Bright is usually right (gerbera, ranunculus, tulips in spring, dahlias in autumn) unless you know the person keeps a quieter house, in which case a green-and-white hand-tied says just as much.

The card is where a birthday bunch earns its keep, so use all of it: a joke only they will get, the year, the thing you are looking forward to doing together. Arranged in the Sevenoaks studio the morning it goes out and delivered locally by our own van, or posted through the letterbox anywhere in the UK. Set the date once and the flowers can go every year without your remembering.