Tag Archives: send flowers to Cyprus

I watched a film the other day called ‘The Vow’ about a woman who had been in a coma and had woken up but had lost part of her memory so she couldn’t remember being married or her husband. The film focused on the attempts he made to help her to remember which included revisiting many of the places they’d been to whilst together and unfortunately none of them did.
The film got me thinking and I did a little research into memory, how it works and how it can be stimulated. It’s a complicated process, completely different to how a computer memory works according to some, for instead of storing information our brains use a series of stimuli gained from our senses to remind us of what we are ‘remembering’.
It covers simple things such as when we see a collection of marks on a piece of paper our brain follows the process like this…

It’s information, so it’s there to tell me something.

The marks look like letters so they must form words

The arrangement of the letters match with words I know

I can link them all up to read the message

I can understand the message being given by those marks

It’s the same when we meet someone again, our brain matches the face to all the faces we’ve seen in the past and if it’s one we’ve been introduced to it will then try to link the visuality of the face to a name.
And again when we taste food that we love or that we hate, memory has a big part to play. In the film, the woman was a vegetarian but because of her memory loss can’t associate the taste of bacon with her former life as a vegetarian.
Some of the most inspiring ones for me are the memories associated with smell and they’re one of the strongest memory joggers. I love the smell of newly made cotton which reminds me of gifts of clothing. Going into a room where onions are frying reminds me of my favourite dish my mum used to make whilst jasmine makes me think of a garden I loved years ago and the people that owned it. There’s perfume or aftershave that lingers on clothes or furniture or in the room that reminds us of our partners too and each time I smell scented stocks, I’m carried back to the summer evenings in my parents’ garden.
Giving flowers isn’t just a visual gift, you can more than double the effect by choosing scented flowers – research has shown that smell is one of the oldest senses and is even used by bacteria to be able to react to their environments.
If you want to create memories or just stir up some from days gone by, don’t just think about that flowers to give, think about what scents those flowers will have. If you’re not sure, the knowledgeable staff at Cosmea Gardens are willing and able to assist in helping you to give the gift of memories as well as flowers.

We’re fast approaching Easter in the UK and a week after it will be Orthodox Easter and this year I get to celebrate both, being in the UK for their Easter weekend before flying back to Cyprus for theirs.
I love Easter, for me it truly signals the end of winter and spring and the start of the countdown to the heady days of summer. Whilst for many, it’s just a time to consume tonnes of hollow chocolate objects and have an excuse for another family dinner, for the more religious it marks the most important festival in the religious calendar.
I’ve often wondered, especially since living in Cyprus, why the Cypriots don’t really do Christmas and save all the celebrations for Eastertide until I looked up a theological essay on the subject.
As far as I can see, the birth of Jesus is relatively unimportant in its significance to the development of Christianity and I can understand why Epiphany is more important as being the first time he is acknowledged as King by the wise men. But it’s Easter and its implication in the ideology of eternal life that is the main festival because it’s when Jesus shows us that it is possible to be raised from death, if only as a soul, and to take our rightful place in heaven. The whole dogma of Christianity hangs on that one event and is summed up succinctly by the Easter morning Greek greeting of ‘Χριστός Ανέστη’ and the reply ‘Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη’, Christ is risen and the reply, truly he is risen.
On a far more light-hearted note, it’s this time of year when I laugh at the friends who have decided upon a ‘bikini diet’ to prepare themselves for their summer holidays. It usually starts when the clocks go forward only to be rudely interrupted when Easter pops up and they’ve just got to gorge themselves on the chocolate eggs and accompanying individual chocolates not to mention those fondant filled eggs that shall remain nameless.
So what should we get for those people who we know desperately want to look svelte in their swimsuit and not bulgy in a bikini? Nothing fits the bill better than a bouquet of flowers and especially at Easter when spring flowers abound and if you want to go for the traditional, you can send white lilies signifying purity and new birth. As always I find the best flowers come from Cosmea Gardens.  Feel free to use coupon “savethiseaster” on checkout and save 10% with a minimum order of 50Eur excluding shipping. It expires the 16th of April. I’ve never had cause to complain about the quality and condition of the blooms they’ve delivered and their flowers last for weeks; a benefit of them using only the freshest cut flowers in their arrangements. They might be a little more expensive than some but when a gift is important for the message it sends, a couple of euros extra is well worth it for the quality. So this Easter, if you need to send a gift to a horizontally challenged friend or relative, be a thoughtful person and send them flowers that will add considerably to their impressions of you and not their waistline!

March 18th is Mother’s Day across most of the world and despite the commercialism that has taken it over along with Valentine’s Day and Father’s Day, it’s a day when we should do something that shows appreciation of our mothers.
Think of the pain they went through to bring us into the world, women often joke that if men had to endure the pain of childbirth, the human population would have died out long ago. Then there’s the sacrifices made to be there for us, bringing us up, working to feed and clothe us, going without to make sure that we didn’t.
For my mother, the pain and sacrifice was all too real with her developing a condition during pregnancy that was to affect her for the rest of her life and still does today. On many occasions she’s had to suffer painful operations, been confined to bed or a wheelchair for weeks or months and had her life limited by the restrictions placed upon her. I’m sure that if we were to delve more deeply into the lives of our parents we’d find similar, possibly less obvious sacrifices, but sacrifices all the same.
In my last post I told you about the sad event that had overtaken one of the children I teach and my heart will be going out to her this Mother’s Day when the flowers she gave her mum each Mother’s Day during her lifetime will now be placed onto a cold grave. It’s times like this that I realise I’m lucky to still have my mother and it makes me determined to show her whilst I still can, just what she means to me.
So how will your mum be celebrating Mother’s Day?
Many will be alone with sons and daughters far away, the lucky ones will receive a phone call or a gift whilst others may hear nothing and feel forgotten, unappreciated and unloved. I sincerely hope your mother isn’t going to be one of those. If you’re lucky to be spending Mother’s Day with your mum, then don’t think that just being there is enough. Take time to find her a gift she’ll really appreciate as being the way you show how much she means to you but don’t just stop there. Flowers are a wonderful gift but they’re often used as a ‘catch-all’ when the giver can’t think of anything else. On Mother’s Day, flowers should be an additional gift because they don’t last long and weeks after the event has passed, all your mum will have is the very nice memory. For the best flowers, you have got to trust Cosmea Gardens who, for decades, have been sending love and happy thoughts across the miles through the language of flowers. Last year I used them for Mother’s Day and the beautiful flowers they delivered lasted for nearly three weeks.
I’m in Cyprus this year whilst my mum’s in the UK but on the day, she’ll receive a gift that she’s worthy of as well as the customary flowers. Skype will bring us together and let me tell her just how grateful I am for all she’s done for me.

I say that because I nearly forgot. Well I didn’t actually forget, I just thought there’s plenty of time to get things organized which of course there never is!

I’m already ‘fingers crossed’ that the card gets to my mum on time and flowers, well if it hadn’t been for Cosmea Gardens I’d have been in trouble big time. Not only do they deliver worldwide but now there’s also a special offer, so whilst many florists are trying to cash in on the day, Cosmea want you to feel good as well as your mum by offering a 15% discount on purchases over 50 euros if you enter the code, “SAVEAPRIL3RD” at the checkout. The offer is only on until April 4th (to allow for those of you that leave it too late then feel guilty!!)

if that wasn’t reason enough to send flowers then think about all that our mums do for us, All that yucky stuff when we’re babies, plasters on knees when we fall over as children, a shoulder to cry on when teen romances falter and then the advice and watchful guardianship as we fly the nest.

I owe my mum so much, I’m sure you’ll agree that MUMS ARE SPECIAL too! So if you want some love in return for your gratitude shown on Mother’s Day – April 3rd, click here or visit Cosmea Gardens now. And don’t leave it too late!