The Gurkha Justice Campaign

I was very gutted at the result today by our government in that they are not prepared to allow settlement unconditionally to ex served members of the Gurkhas.

The government is happy to send them to war, to fight campaigns or solve crisis', whatever they want to be called, and its the governement that is happy to have an open door policy for any one who wishes to settle in the UK. Those 2 sentences are a contradition in themselves - no wonder our state of affairs is in complete and utter chaos.

I'm not going to pretend that I understand the politics behind it, cos I don't. I am a 'minion' - one of the hard working population, that does the most, yet gets the littlest reward for my efforts. Thats ok. If I wanted a big house, big pay check, and a big car - I'd be an MP or District Councillor or other white collar official.

Anyhow, coming back to topic - after setting the world to rights there - I have a high regard for the military in general, and have a high regard particularly for the Gurkhas. They go through a rigourous recruitment programme even before they can don the Queens uniform to begin training. The training that they undergo is harder than the standard training. They are expected to fight alongside their UK national counterparts for the privilige of less wages, with one month leave to go home every 2 years, and at the end of it all, are bagged and tagged back to Nepal - ok - maybe that was fine in olden days.

But - now with the UK being the open door that it is, letting in every man jack and his uncle for reasons of 'If I stay in my country they'll kill me' - then by the same token, I think, no - I believe that it should only be fair that the Gurkhas should be given the same opportunity to settle in the UK - where they did their training, and where they had their home base throughout the time served in the queens uniform - instead of being packed off back with a medal and a handshake back to Nepal.

Sorry this is long winded - so I'll close off here - for more information, please read this link http://www.gurkhajustice.org.uk/ which will take you to Joanna Lumleys campaign details, and if you feel so inclined, please sign the petition to render your support.

Thank you in advance of your consideration and assistance.

The Past Week

I've expanded our selling online to actually physically taking our items to the outside world. Scary I know - meeting actual people face to face. Well - it had to be done.

We're trying to downsize as we're hoping to move later this year - if all goes well and house prices don't rise too much - so we've taken to filling the car with boxes with bits and bobs that we no longer need and taking them to bootsales. To expand the selection of items that we're selling, I've also added some hand crafted items to the inventory. Sales of the hand crafted items are going really well, and I am also picking up orders and getting ideas of things that they'd like to see available. The doll outfits and doll pram / cot accessories are a really good seller, as it is now that we are having nice weather and little girls are playing with their dolls and want to have new outfits and pram sets. Another good seller are peg bags.

I did a bootsale last Saturday, and also last Sunday - and on both days the weather was coldish to start, but turned out really hot. Hubby was quite amazed when I arrived home and my lower arms had nice red patches. Luckily for me, on a normal day the red turns into a tan - but I'll have to remember to take the sun cream with me for hotter days.

I've been busy working on a few orders and have them nearly completed ready for mailing. I also have the orders cut out ready to stitch tomorrow for customers who are collecting their purchases at Saturdays bootsale. I really do wish I knew which doll was Baby Annabell and which was Chou Chou. It would make it so much easier. I'm also hoping to expand the inventory of Reborn outfits.