Pippa Hope, September 2022
I never aspired to be a blogger. NEVER.
Richard, our great friend and business partner, was the wordsmith.
He was a professional writer, so ‘Blogging’ should have been his job.
His creative role at Friendly Seeds was ‘Words’,
I was ‘Pictures’ - graphic designer.
Richard was cool, calm and dependable.
Me, the chaotic, impulsive artistic one.
Julia had a business brain and a passion for bees and conservation.
Ed reined us all in and organised our seed dispatches.
We built our business together and shared all the daily tasks.
We weren’t the A-Team - we were the Bee Team!!
Julia Craik and Richard Preddy died in 2020. Ed and I were, in the space of 3 months, half a team down.
The loss of two very close friends mid-pandemic was a challenging time for us, to say the very least. We stumbled on, no longer being able to rely on these two very capable minds.
I focussed my attention on managing Friendly Seed Company Limited while learning everything I could about pollinators, wildflowers, habitat conservation and seeds. Ed ploughed on with dispatches and kept us looking forward.
Blogging appears to be the appropriate way to share our passion for wildflowers, bees and butterflies and their habitats, so blog we must.
Richard was a very talented comedy writer and had a wonderful sense of the ridiculous.
Crazy ‘Picture’ woman writing blogs would have amused him no end.
Even as I type this I sense him silently correcting my grammar!
Richard Preddy and Julia Craik, co-founders of Friendly Seed Company Limited