Autumn is upon us and I don't like it!

Autumn is upon us and I don't like it! We have had nothing but rain and high winds this week, Teddi and I started a new dog training class and it was pitch black at 8.30pm. The summer seems a distant memory but I have been dreaming of next year's holiday. I say dreaming because between my work and the fact that my husband cannot have any time off during the London Olympics, I'm not sure when we can fit a holiday in next year. I was looking at Mexico (lots of bugs and reptiles) but it is hurricane season after the summer and we made that mistake before when we visited Mauritius. I will just have to look forward to Christmas and a bit of time off. There is certainly not enough of me to go around at the moment. My mother in-law came out of hospital on Monday, she is doing ok but after having a second hip operation she is pretty immobile. I was trying to get all my Monday morning posting done this week and I had non-stop phone calls about her care. I was tearing my hair out and panicking about what I had packed, I had to keep recounting everything! Nobody actually believes that I am working when I'm at home. It drives me nuts when family members ring up and say "would you like to come to Legoland or Thorpe park", I would love to but I don't think my customers would be too pleased when their orders don't arrive because I skipped off for the day. Missing last Thursday was difficult enough, that's why Monday was so busy but it certainly wasn't fun taking my mother in-law to hospital for such a big operation. I don't like hospitals, if I were unlucky enough to be bitten by one of my spiders, I think I would rather sit down with a cup of tea than rush off to hospital.

I have again received lots of orders this week and some nice large orders from a few schools and colleges. It's all good, only a few weeks ago I was seriously thinking about what else I could do! Sales on the whole are way down on last year but as I have said before, I think it is the same for everyone. I suspect that those people who tell me that their business is thriving are either kidding themselves or fibbing. I have had some new spiders, scorpions and millipedes in this week and I am expecting more stick insects tomorrow and spiders again next week. I haven't put the millipedes on the website yet because I haven't had these ones before and I need to sort out the information on them. I shall consult my good friend Google, how I love Google. Every day I Google something or other, it is amazing what you can find out about people on there. Sometimes, as I discovered this week, you can find out a little more than you would like to know. I said last week that I would elaborate on the "pumped up, angry young man syndrome" that I have too often encountered but I think that would be very difficult to go into on my blog. I don't want to get into anything personal, I have quite enough going on in my life at the moment and I seem to have them all placated for now. I expect that those of you who frequent forums and have managed to 'tread on someone's toes' (however inadvertently), will know exactly what I mean. I have been threatened with blackening my name on more than one occasion but I can honestly say that my spies are everywhere and someone will always tell me when my name comes up in a non friendly way. Most people do like me, but I can't help getting upset by the odd one that I just cannot please, whatever I do or say. They just want revenge and someone to blame. Enough said! Well almost, I must just mention a guy called Josh, everything that could go wrong with his order did go wrong. I ended up sending him a credit note but when he came to use it, the coupon module on my website had a glitch that even my website guy couldn't fix. It was all a bit of a nightmare but Josh was so sweet in his emails and told me that I am still the best bug lady. Now that's the sort of customer I love and appreciate!

My car decided to fail the MOT last Friday and it has been a real pain. It had never failed before and decided to do it in spectacular fashion. There were so many things wrong that it took until yesterday to put them right. It really wasn't helped by the fact that the wheel nut tool was missing from my car. I dropped the car at a tyre shop on Saturday and then went onto the hospital. I immediately had a call to say that they couldn't find the tool and couldn't take the wheels off without it. I told them to keep searching. When I got back to the garage the guys said that they felt like they were the drug squad and had looked absolutely everywhere. Goodness knows where the damn thing went but we had to order another one in from a Vauxhall dealer. Thankfully it passed the re-test yesterday.

This Saturday I am taking part in a reptile survey. I don't know much about it, I am just tagging along because I really want to see an Adder in the wild. I am rather regretting getting involved now, I cannot imagine any cold blooded animal being able to move outside of its home unless the weather changes dramatically. I keep checking and it isn't very likely! I will literally be an anorak in wellies! I will report back on my findings next week.

The blog is a day early this week because I have a busy weekend coming up and I won't have time to sit down and write it tomorrow, plus I got up very early this morning so it seemed a good idea!