Greetings from Spain where I am being lashed by Storm Philomena.
As I type I can see huge Atlantic style rollers in the sea below and a howling wind is literally rocking my house, which I feel is not accustomed to such weather and seems to be creaking.. moaning under the strain.
I have never seen extreme weather like this here before.
Last week I was telling you how we could "prosper mightily" in 2021 you can read it here.
In the UK, storm Brexit is just beginning to bite. Things are unravelling fast, all our EU shipments are in various stages of limbo as every shipping company is in crisis.
Dear customer, we have plan A, B and C to deal with this.. we were fully prepared for Brexit. But this Free Trade Deal, it turns out is anything but.. nothing is free as far as I can see.
If you are an EU customer with an order with us (and there are still many orders).. we have all hands on deck sorting out the issues.
I strongly recommend using our EU warehouses for future orders, at least until this storm settles down. AWGifts.eu (Slovakia) or AWArtisan.eu (Spain)
Current shipping update: DPD (the biggest) has halted all shipments until next Wednesday - when it will give us an update. See BBC for details. Where they describe it as the perfect storm.
Courier Logistics - UK all OK, but Northern Ireland technical problems.
UPS - the online system for uploading customs documents is not correctly working.
DHL & TNT - still seems to be working, and goods sent by them have cleared UK customs, but after that - at this point we don't know what's happened.
There may be trouble ahead
But while there's music and moonlight
And love and romance
Let's face the music and dance
That Nat King Cole song comes to mind.. it's the right attitude, do our best and dance.
This Brexit thing is truly awful, it's all coming home to roost.. making the Project fear projections hopeless understatements. I'm sorry I feel strongly with the covid crisis this thing should have been delayed.
When Borris said, lets get Bexit out of the way so we can concentrate on covid it sounded perfectly reasonable. But the Brexit genie just came out of the bottle and there hell to pay, it's far from out of the way. Heck. It's just beginning.
OK let's calm down and focus.
Soon, we'll be without the moon
Humming a different tune ..
India. oh.. India.. I miss travelling in India so much. This week some long awaited Indian shipments arrived. Including one from a new supplier that Tomas and I discovered deep in the heart of Old Delhi back in early March last year. It brought the memory back to mind.
It seems a world away, a lifetime away. I had been in Indonesia and flown down to Kolkata to meet Tomas, with Mr Chatterjee we had gone upto Delhi to see some existing suppliers and check out some new ones. Coronavirus was already serious, but in Delhi just breaking news at that time. That day we arranged to meet Kamran outside a shop near the Red Fort, then we followed him deep into the depths of Old Delhi's Chawri Bazar. Teaming with people all going about their business, street food vendors, cows , rickshaws, people on bikes.. then through an ancient arch down a rabbit hole of tiny lanes. I remember feeling uneasy, it was a hot sunny day with a surprising blue sky. But the worry that covid could be easy lurking here occupied our minds.
This was an area of Delhi that I had not explored before, a giftware zone as well. Surprisingly tidy and lots of wholesale showrooms full of esotic and esoteric items. Later we came back to explore and discovered some interesting people and things.
As we followed, the lanes got narrower, twisted and turned. We followed for quite a way, so I started taking pictures in case we had to find our own way out of the maze. Eventually we arrived at the company go-down, a back street warehouse crammed with brass artifacts. A narrow entrance was dominated by huge brass tigers, and then we followed him up at least five flights of stairs, each level containing a different type of stock. One floor all decorative padlocks, another brass singing bowls, another Indian gods of every deity. Finally on the top floor a room full of brass Buddahs of every size, pose and decor. Kamran explained that he commissioned and bought work from a range of artisans, some of them Tibetan exiles who produced designs handed down generations. In his workshop area workers cleaned polished, finished and packed for export all over the world.
It was most of a day's work but we selected a range, asked for some redesigns and placed an order. Refreshingly Kamran was very honest, he told us it would take at least four months to make this order as the artisans could only make so many pieces a day. And true to his word the order was produced on schedule, but by then India was in solid lockdown, and nothing could be shipped. Lots of things happened between then and now, but finally the shipment came.
I miss India, traveling with Tomas and Mr Chatterjee. I miss dealing with gentle guys like Kamran, I would love to go back to Chawri Bazar, and explore those back lanes some more. Ah.. one day.
But for now.. we have to face the music and dance..
That should lift your mood!!
Meanwhile, lot's of Indian stock is back online..
And if you feel the need to support the artisans of old Delhi,
Stay safe and dream of better days.
More updates next week.