I re-read my dear friend (Nick's cousin) Anna's book of poetry, called "Poems for People," today. She is a warm and wise woman in her 70s from the Scottish side of his family, a spirit medium, graphologist and palmist who has lived in Israel since the 1950s. When she published her book and generously gave me a copy, I was fascinated to read it but had no idea of the effort and the love that had been necessary to produce it. Isn't it interesting how, until you experience a process first hand, the understanding can only be limited. It is not until I am going through the same process myself - albeit with a different kind of publishers who do all the publicity and marketing for me - that I can truly appreciate what it entailed and all its attendant emotions.

In the hall at the moment there are some big, beautiful, white lilies whose perfume is just heavenly. In Anna'a book, there is a poem for her sister, Laura, who is a gifted concert pianist and composer, to the effect that she wishes her poems could soar off the page just as Laura can play a piece by Brahms. I also think for instance that it is the fate of the poet not to be fully able to recreate exquisite perfumes either. My attempt to do just that appears in my anthology "Eternal Sparrow" entitled, "A Passion for Perfume." Loads of words where just one sniff takes you into the most amazing altered state of ecstasy!

I create individual signature perfumes for people, and I am aware that experiencing perfumes is an activity that begins to develop at the latest at birth and certainly way before we master language. For this reason, and the fact that a scent's information goes straight to the brain from the nasal passages, without having to be carried a long way by the nervous system, our likes and dislikes are immediate, visceral. Every perfume I design with a client is different and, when finished, couldn't be a better expression of that person's soul. It never fails to delight me, and for the client seems to produce a new understanding of themselves in a dimension hitherto unused. Commercially mass produced perfume never can quite cut it, because along with all the fragrances a person recognises and chooses, there are always those that they haven't chosen and it becomes a "good enough" compromise. When I make a perfume for them, they choose every single component and absolutely love to wear it. It speaks where no words can.