Since last week it's been mad busy at AW partly because of the approaching Valentines day, but also because lots of new stock arrived from India and Indonesia - and that always creates a bit of excitement. Also a container of Salt Lamps arrived. 

See below for the lines we have managed to get online...  

I'm so happy to see those products finally land in our warehouse and website - it's the result of hard work some four or five months ago. Regular readers will have followed the last Asian trip and how those products came to be.

Now the circle of life continues, because the next trip is just starting. From KL I will go to Bali and work with our man Ringo on the next Indonesian products, we opened a new warehouse there last year and it has spacious offices attached that I'm thinking to put to creative use. From there I will go to Kolkata to meet our man in India Mr Chatterjee - Tomas will arrive in India the same time. We will visit the orphanage in Serampore that we support to check on progress. Later we will go to Delhi then Bangalore to see some incense companies. The plan after that was to go to China.. but right now that seems to be a problem. There is a guy called Amila who works with Raul here in KL, he is from Sri Lanka - his home town is the centre of the gemstone area - so maybe we will go there and see if we can do business while we wait for China to open.

Coco update. 

First of all I have to say a big thank you to everyone who emailed words of support - I have passed on the emails to her and she is very much encouraged by them. Thank you.

I just spoke to her and all is OK, or as OK as it can be when you are in a locked down village. Normally for Chinese New Year I am also in that village, (it was only because of starting our new Spain company that I didn't go) I know the village and it's people very well. The residents are mostly old folks, at CNY the younger relatives come home and I think about 200 people will be there. It's literally a one road town, houses each side of the road, one or two behind and surrounded by rice fields as far as you can see. There are no restaurants, only two shops, one a small supermarket and agricultural supplies store belongs to Coco's brother and his wife.  The road in and out has been blocked with access only for police and health officials. Every few hours a police car drives through with loud speaker telling residents to stay in-doors at all time. Only one designated person is allowed out to shop every two days and they must wear a mask. A government health official stands guard at the shop to police this policy, and even though the shop belongs to Coco family she is not allowed any extra visits, she was even warned about trying to visit after hours. Anyway there are no new deliveries coming along the road so all the meat ran out a week ago, eggs are gone now they only have veg and rice. They have been told to expect the lock down for at least another week, but could be end of February. The good news is that no-one in the village has any symptoms everyone is healthy, but rumours abound that cases have been found in just the next village. The nearest city about 30 minutes away has a lot of cases, it's a big worry. Coco is like, well it is what it is, can only take it a day at a time, they are playing a lot of card games and Chinese chess. 

I'm sure it will be OK in the end, but who knows how it will play out. I'll keep you posted. But yes I'm worried, I'm losing sleep every night. 

Life goes on.. on Monday I made a visit to the NEC in Birmingham - it is years since I have been there and was interested to see what is grabbing attention. The main reason was to check on Agnes & Cat our posh British brand that needs this kind of trade show exposure. It was great to see the team in action, and was delighted to see it buzzing busy. Well done guys, I can see you worked incredibly hard. 

Take Care

David