Coty's First Perfume Shop.

I'm standing in the Place Vendome, opposite the Tuileries Gardens in Paris. A good area. It's Easter time and amazingly warm. Every time I've been to Paris, the weather has been good. Except once. The last day of a long weekend when we went to the Christening of one of our friend's daughter when it rained. They now have five children and we've been to two christenings, one here in Paris, the other in Addingham, near Ilkley in Yorkshire. I think others were in Canada, Italy and Australia. It's definitely not an event to have in the same place twice.
That's going off the point though.
I'm in Paris at this time for a holiday and I wanted to see where Francois Coty opened his first shop. It's an impressive square. There are the big jewellery names here. Napoleon's Column. Napoleon Bonaparte was a distant relation of Coty's, so maybe that is why he chose this location. On the small island of Corsica where both Bonaparte and Coty were born, there weren't many main families, so quite often people were related.

So, here I am standing in the centre of the square in front of Napoleon. He's on the top of the stone pillar. A composer lived here.

Coty also chose to open his shop next door to the glassmaker's, Rene Lalique who he later persuaded to make his perfume bottles. They worked together for twelve years before falling out over production demands.

There's no fuss to the square. Just the buildings and the column. No little park in the centre. It's business. It feels like business.

It's not my favourite area of Paris. I prefer the back streets, the winding routes of Montmartre, looking out over the rooftops from the heights of the Sacre Coeur. By the river, the traffic really seems to kick in and the expensive shops and places selling little Eiffel towers and Arc de Triomphes don't interest me. I'm still a tourist, as you can see. I've sat in Jean Paul Sartre's old haunts and taken a photo of the little Shakespeare Book Company. And found Jim Morrison's grave and Oscar Wilde's and Edith Piaf's. Covered with flowers, tended by a full time gardener. And collected conkers, bright and shiny. Isn't it sad how quickly they go matt and wrinkly? But lovely when they are fresh. I've kicked bright leaves here too. I once wanted to live here, but have only managed visits. Is it too late? Do I still want to live here? I'm not sure. We change. I want the sea now. Thing is, the sea is coming, isn't it? Have to say, I feel at home in Yorkshire. It makes me happy and sad. The people in Yorkshire though make me very happy. Take the man in the car park in Hyde Park in Leeds.

I'm at Sir John Deane's Sixth Form college in Cheshire tomorrow talking to students about writing, from Emmerdale to Bob the Builder to Meeting Coty. Funny seeing them all in one sentence. Very odd.