The Australian wool market received a slight boost last week from the misfortune of South African growers, who were forced to cancel their sale due to a Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak.
Similar to 2019, when the last FMD outbreak occurred, China placed an immediate ban on the import of all cloven hooved animal products from South Africa - but not Lesotho at this stage.
Authorities in South Africa immediately decided to cancel their wool auction pending further discussions and this transferred some orders across to the Australian market.
Therefore, the Australian market received a timely boost, pushing prices higher by 20 to 25 cents a kilogram on the first selling day on Tuesday.
The second day of the auction in Australia gave back a lot of the previous day's gains, in local currency terms at least, as the Australian Dollar unexpectedly surged above US0.75 cents.
By week's end, the wool market was 4c/kg dearer in US Dollar terms, but had eased by 6c/kg in the local currency.
The continued softening of the Euro meant that European buyers were forced to spend more, with an increase in wool prices of 31c/kg in Euro across the week.
Poor quality wools, as a result of seasonal conditions, also contributed to a lacklustre performance in the Australian market.
Buyers became more reticent to buy these wools containing unscourable colour and higher vegetable matter (VM).
Superfine Merino types continue to be the most sought after. But prices for this segment didn't change a lot over the course of the week.
Medium Merino fleece types had a larger gain than the finer types for a change, as buyers looked for value and quality.
Crossbred wools struggled and carding wools eased slightly, again as buyers avoided the excessive colour and high VM lots.
Some buyers are also feeling the pinch of wools backed-up in the pipeline awaiting shipment as dumps and shipping companies struggle to cope with the current workload.
Demand from Europe is definitely waning at present, given that any greasy wool from Australia - or wooltop from China or India - purchased now will only arrive on European shores in mid-June at best.
This is considered too late for the current season and a little too early for the new season, given that their holiday period is generally spread over July-August.
Many European mills are still battling with surging energy costs, and in Italy a chronic water shortage, making the task of wool processing enough of a challenge for them to think twice before committing to buying more raw material for the "far-off" 2022-23 season.
European mills, and their counterparts in Russia and Belarus, are still operating. But they are focusing on the short-term, buying prompt stock from those who still hold some in Europe.
For many, the next few months will be a nervous time as they try to assess the mood of the consumer market.
As the war in Ukraine drags on, more and more sanctions are imposed and two-way trade with the East becomes difficult.
Inflation pressures build, triggered mostly by energy costs, but without the economic growth that other regions are experiencing.
The good news is that the European Union is pushing ahead with its certification, or categorisation, of clothing.
In a move to arrest the out-of-control fast-fashion behemoth, which is so damaging to both the environment and the European textile industry, the European Commission has released a proposal to promote sustainability and circular textiles.
Wool obviously ticks both boxes, but the challenge is for a fibre which represents less than 2 per cent of the world's apparel fibre content to actually be heard.
The noise generated by everyone else makes it difficult to get our point across.
While we all know it, making sure that the messaging gets across and the rules are sensible - and involve "whole of garment life", rather than just the 30 minutes or so that fast fashion occupies - is the challenge.
China too has a challenge it seems.
While it is yet to move down the sustainability path, its battle with COVID-19 is ramping-up.
Having shut down the city of Shanghai for testing, the relatively small number of cases (about 8000 cases per day) is causing alarm among officials, and leading to further quarantine restrictions.
As soon as a positive case has been identified, the immediate vicinity - apartment block, or neighborhood - is locked down for 14 days.
This is obviously playing havoc with the workforce, transportation system and the local economy.
Simply unloading a container of greasy wool at the port of Shanghai and clearing customs to transport it to a processing mill in Zhangjiagang is not possible at present - nor is exporting a container of finished goods going the other way.
Some expect, or hope, that the situation will be eased from mid-April.
But at present it has meant that new orders have dried-up.
The larger mills are still operating, as they tend to have the resources and connections to navigate their way through.
But many smaller mills have simply stopped until things get sorted.
Mid-April is not too late for the Chinese processing sector to bounce back, and still make the goods for the autumn-winter season.
But how long and how damaging the lockdowns become will be the telling factor.
A relatively large offering this week in Australia of 48,000 bales, with presumably no sale in the Cape, will test the market given the current state of play.
If growers decide to self-regulate the market by withdrawing or passing in wools which fail to meet expectations, the market may get through to the Easter recess without too much damage.
But if growers hit the panic button and sell regardless, we could see a lot of red ink on the market reports.
With the new financial year not too far away, a proportion of growers may decide to sit back and wait until things settle down globally.
This would take some heat out of the supply side, and allow some of the congestion to dissipate.
Either way, the wool market's famed resilience should continue and allow us to sit back over Easter and relax with a bar of chocolate or two.