27/07/2025
THE LA FEMME FLEUR FAMILY
Five years ago our twin boys Max and Freddie joined our flower family.
In a blunt sign of what CEO-mum life would look like, I had worked right through my pregnancy during the busy Christmas period. I finally closed the truck on Christmas Eve and we had three weeks to prepare for the boy’s birth. But on Boxing Day, my water broke. At 5:26pm Max arrived, followed two minutes later by Freddie. And suddenly working-mum life began.
I felt huge pressure to return to work to keep the business flourishing, to stay present in the community and to keep the mortgage paid. With the support of my amazing staff (love you Cush) we were open again by 23 January 2020.
It was such a heavy balancing act. I was so lucky to have so much support from my family, my team and the community. But when the first Covid lockdown was announced it felt like a relief. I acknowledge the huge cost the pandemic had on so many people, but it gave us permission to focus on our babies and not have to worry about anything else.
Then we had to work out how to adapt, not just to a world reshaped by Covid, but to our world reshaped by the privilege of raising these little boys. It’s been a rollercoaster that has pulled me in so many different directions. I did not know it would be possible to be this tired, or to love something this much, or to get so many things done in a day, or to miss Sunday sleep-ins so much.
It’s so easy to be really hard on yourself both as a mum and as a business owner. But when I look back on the past five years I’m so proud of the way we’ve raised our boys at the same time as growing our business.
From them sleeping in the boatshed at Cox’s Bay as babies, to them standing on the driveway waving as I head off in the dark at 5am, to seeing them do their own flower arrangements, they’ve become a part of La Femme Fleur. I couldn’t have done it without the support of the village that has been a part of the boys’ life and our flower community who have given us so much support.
Over the next week we’re going to be celebrating the La Femme Fleur family. Because we couldn’t do it without them. Come down and give them some love.
