A Festival of Love and Prettiness!

The T.C. was here, finishing off what Jon started, and doing different, additional things. Jon made the bones of the Enfleurage Frankincense & Myrrh Distillery and the T.C. made it come to life. I just serve the cookies!

The distillery is operating, although I need to make some small adjustments. We are getting great oil and hydrosol but it could break my head a little less. We’ve got shelves up now and half a ton of luban off the floor, and it’s looking like a real, proper, frankincense distillery. Which, of course, it is. I forgot to take pictures of this room and am on my way to mystery destination, which I will hopefully come back from with all my organs! But it’s not Africa...

The Visitor Reception/Maglis is done, and I’ve put a few pictures of it here, albeit with some light issues from the chandelier and windows. But that’s the camera. The view from inside out is coconut palms, hibiscus, jasmine, bougainvillea.....and some spectacular green parrots. The space is great, and we’ve already hosted our first groups, from Germany and Austria. Visitors see the stills, smell the frankincense oil, eat frankincense ice cream, taste frankincense oil in local honey, and drink hydrosols. I answer questions as best as I can. So far, so good. And we’ve still got a few things coming.

Even my office is great! I had just shoved stuff in there and the Feng Shui was terrible. The T.C. changed all that, and now it’s just as cozy as can be. Again, pictures to follow. It’s a festival of love and prettiness!

He cleaned off the back porch (an odd thing for an American man to be doing in broad daylight in Salalah,) and he made it absolutely adorable. Now it’s a warm and welcoming place to sit and relax and watch the moon rise through the palm fronds. Slowly slowly it’s metamorphosing into a really great place. It’s like a butterfly, all golds and greens, unfolding its wet wings and taking a few short cautious first flights.

If it weren’t for the T.C. and Jonathan, and Anwar, our fantastic graphic designer (who is still fine tuning our beautiful new logo,) I don’t know where we’d be. Not here, that’s for sure. Enfleurage Middle East is now the perfect complement to the store in New York. I hope that many people come visit us, especially from the US.

 As the fine-tune tweaking continues, and the distillery slowly gets to the point where it can exist on its own, you can bet that I already have the next project ensconced in its chrysalis.

There’s always so much to do.....I am thrilled that things have worked out the way they have, in almost every respect. The new season has started, the ocean is slowly calming down, the sun is out and temperatures are fine. My frankincense trees are excited and exploding baby green growth all over. A small house plant I had in Dahariz is now about 12 feet tall and just sprouted huge purple flowers hanging like udders. Knee high bushes and thigh high trees are suddenly dwarfing me. The garden is singing like a cartoon glee club, and birds and butterflies are coming to stay.