As Quesnel’s biggest supplier of flowers, Safeway’s floral department staff have been busy preparing for their busiest day of the year,Valentine’s Day.
“We just try to keep up. It’s busy,” says Safeway manager Gloria Moskalyk.
In the last week, the store has been overflowing with every shape and colour of rose imaginable in preparation for the big day.
For Moskalyk, it’s unlikely she’ll be on the receiving end of any Valentine flowers herself, though she’s been happily married to her husband Dale for the last 43 years.
“My husband’s allergic. The only time I get flowers is if he’s out of town or I’m mad at him,” she joked.
The couple has their own love story, having met as teenagers at a roller rink in Kamloops where they both went to high school.
His way to break the ice was to convince her and her friends to get in his vehicle afterwards.
“He said he knew where a party was,” she said, shrugging. “It was the 70s.”
As the story goes, they ended up getting in a minor vehicle collision that night, which led them to spending more time together.
The two realized they had a lot of common interests, and went on to get married and raise one daughter.
The Moskalyks have balanced busy work schedules with family life over the years, carving out time together whenever they could.
“In all of those years I can probably count on one hand the anniversaries we haven’t spent together. It’s what’s important,” she said.
Her romantic gesture on Valentine’s Day is to get a box of ‘Hello Kitty’ Valentine’s cards and put them in places her husband will find them throughout the day, such as his lunch, wallet and truck.
The couple moved to Quesnel eight years ago, transferring from the Lower Mainland for work.
“We don’t like big cities. We just lived there for the jobs,” she says, adding they plan to stay in Quesnel.
“It’s a great community. You’re just welcome here,” she says of what she loves about Quesnel. “And we love the outdoors and the lifestyle here.”