Greetings from the twilight zone..

It was peaceful, productive and green in Indonesia, but circumstances forced me to leave and return to Europe. I'm in Spain now.

Here in Europe it seems the exact opposite.. war in Ukraine, transport strike in Spain and a weird mud storm turning everything brown.

Yesterday afternoon was gloomy and muddy, the air quality turned three times worse than Delhi (according to my AirVisual app) and it really felt like I was living inside a sepia picture. 

Last week I was telling you more about our Java Road Trip to the Teak Village - you can read about it here.

Amazingly I managed to get an international flight out of Bali, before departing the captain came on the tannoy to assure us that this plane would not be flying in Russian or Ukrainian airspace.

It's a strange world at the moment..

But at least we can celebrate Mother's Day in the UK. - To all mothers out there, wishing you a peaceful and happy Sunday. Hope and pray for a normal happy day.

I'm in Spain now but my heart is still in Indonesia.. With so many projects still on the go, I'm still finalising products and deals today. Bondan and Ringo and the team loaded two containers yesterday working late into the night. Both for the UK.. so lots of products on the way..

Every inch of space is used, we even stopped using master cartons to save space, products are packed inside furniture and textiles packed in any void space. Shipping costs are still sky high, so every possible packing solution is essential. An Epic job by our Bali team..

Last week I was telling you about the teak village in Java.. after that we went to a village where brass products are produced. Again I was surprised at the peaceful collaborative nature of the place. Small artisan workshops each with it's own specialist items, our main contact took us to see his brothers place and his uncles, between them they can make an interesting collection. The items are cast in wax first with some details hand carved in the wax, then the wax is packed in fine sand with a straw hole through which the molten brass is poured, melting the wax and creating the brass figure.  It's far from industrial, artisan workshops with people working to the sound of 80's soft rock music and the people we found to be all studious and gentle.  

Bondan compiled a video of our day in the Brass Village.