Olive anyone ?

I remember my first encounter with an olive many moons ago at a prestigous dinner party. I was in my late teens, feeling very grown up when I tried one for the first time and all I can say is it left a bitter taste in my mouth that I thought was very unpleasant. I vowed never to try another as I discreetly got rid of the offfending olive in a posh napkin.

So you might ask why choose olive as a name for the training school in Wiltshire ? Well in answer to that question I would say that I have grown to appreciate the olive in different ways.

Firstly, when I trained as an aromatherapist over 10 years go (and more) both at practitioner and advanced level I was lucky to have a tutor who really loved essential oils. Whilst I learnt all the key points that I needed to pass the end of course test the tutor would give us amazing stories about each oil we used. So for those of you who drizzle olive oil over your salad did you know that it was believed to bestow much strength and youth to those who consumed it ?

Secondly, one of my most favourite places is the Greek Islands where olive trees hundreds of years old sculpt the landscape. Olive wood is amazingly tactile and downright beautiful being highly prized for its durability, its subtle colour and interesting patterns; it is often made into useful bowls and even furniture. It has been my pleasure to be invited to a traditional greek home and share lunch with the family and taste their very own home produced oil.

I even found a museum on the island of Kefalonia in Makriotika Village which told the story of Olive but thats an amusing story all of its own.

So putting all of the evidence together when deciding to offer beauty courses, makeup courses and completmentary therapies courses we decided we wanted to do things to a high standard and offer quality. We wanted to ensure our students would be strong and highly prized going out in to the workplace.... so picking the name Olive Training was really a no-brainer !