The Big Blue

The Big Blue, directed by Luc Besson. I had the box here. Someone's run away with it. I'll have to write about it tomorrow, the details I mean, starring Jean Reno, Rosanna Arquette....
Great sense of humour, beautiful visuals, haunting music (very 80s) some bits that bother me, but less so on this latest viewing (Rosanna Arquette's character) and an ending that makes me cry but makes me yearn for the same as the main character experiences. Trying not to spoil it if you haven't seen the film. The ending is right for the characters and the story and I'm sure many of us at some point feel that is the way we'd like to swim, float, drift...

Andalucia

This time last year I was in Spain researching 'Sweet Scent of Success.' It was freezing. There was the first snow in Cordoba they'd had for a long, long time. Just flakes, very pretty, very cold.
It seems a long time ago. A lot has happened since then. Cordoba, Adalucia, is a stunning place. On the Saturday of that week I went to Jerez de la Frontera where the Estevez family is from. Saw the Estevez sherry bodega. I don't think it's the Estevez plantation of my ancestors, but it was a fantastic experience. What stayed with me the most was the sense of humour of the people there and the smell of sherry soaked wood.
Jerez is bonkers. The people are bonkers. Cadiz held its festival that weekend and everywhere people dressed in fancy clothes.
It was a wonderful week. A crazy week with the people, the buildings, the Mezzquita, the train journies,conversations, food, glorious prawns and fino. The best. Plate after plate - glass after glass.
And walking round an art gallery that was almost deserted. One rainy day being chatted up in spanish by a curator in the Architectural Museum. They were certainly bored that day. Green mossy stone.
Winding alleyways. Adandoned scooters. Graffiti. Orange trees. The wide, wide milky coffee river. Strolling, growing to feel at home.

Sisters

There are three sisters in Meeting Coty. The eldest, Maraquita, thinks she is the only one that cares for everyone else in the household. She is a great organiser. She is a 'doer.' She holds the structure of everyone's day together, so that meals appear, beds are changed, clothes mended, windows cleaned, all daily tasks occur and everyone knows about it.
Only when the others don't help in small tasks when asked does the anger that is smouldering in her, erupt. And it does so for what seems like unexpected reasons. So when Maraquita and Tessa physically fight in the dining room,it is about more than Tessa wanting to leave the house for the afternoon rather than sort out the linen.
Tessa is the middle sister. She rises early once a week to snap heads off her mother's flower displays, carries them upstairs, where she drowns them in a sink filled with water in early attempts to make perfume. She dreams of escaping her large family to work for another family, that of Francois Coty, the famous perfume maker. She follows his rise as, unknown to her, her family's fortunes are falling. She wants a career, whilst her sisters want love. Maraquita yearns for their mother's love, Carmen, for life and finally a man.
Carmen, the youngest, elopes from their convent school in Belgium, with the gardener's son. For her, all that matters is her love for him. Life is simple. If she wants something, she doesn't ask anyone's permission, she merely pursues her desire.
Three women with three viewpoints. At this stage, they are not aware of there being any other way but their own to tackle life. In Leaving Coty, the sequel to Meeting Coty, they begin to look outside themselves and at each other. Sisters. It's complicated. Are love and hate more closely related within the family unit than elsewhere?

First day

Hello. I know that soon this will be as automatic when I start the day as making my first cup of tea and checking emails. But, right now, I'm wondering if this is going to work. I've already had a message saying my blog name doesn't exist - "aromaticwords" but then it suddenly appeared again. Now that was hard enough choosing the blog title. I think it may change a few times before I get it right.
So. This is the start. I will let these initial concerns go and settle down in the next few days.
I'm interested in discussing books, if I've read them, what you find interesting on a particular day, or what I happen to, what concerns, what moves, what inspires and what words come out as you stare at the screen. And not the ones when the computer doesn't do what you want.

And I'm interested in discussing vintage perfumes. Francois Coty when he was at his most productive because I'm writing a book where he features heavily, following my first novel, 'Meeting Coty' which is about a young woman desperate to work for him. Published by Kings Hart Books www.kingshart.co.uk

Also Brazil. I dance with a group who play north east Brazilian rhythms - maracatu based with all sorts of idiosyncratic twists and influences. Juba do Leao. Look at their website www.jubadoleao.com/jdl The drums are fantastic and the dancers.... nothing like them.