Easter weekend was nice

Easter weekend was nice, I went up to London to see the musical Sunny Afternoon. It was excellent and then I went to a country fair on Easter Sunday with the family (including Teddi, she loved it, I've never seen so many dogs). This week has however been crazy, I spent Easter Monday sorting out paperwork and doing jobs in the bug room. It is a very busy time in the bug world, probably a very busy time for anything live, plants or animals. Everything is reproducing, growing, needing care and attention. Bank holidays always play havoc with my posting days but having Friday and Monday as bank holidays meant that I was very limited as to when I could send orders both last week and this week. I managed to get the backlog sorted and thankfully had no problems with the post. I did waste a valuable morning on Wednesday when I drove all the way to west London to collect some pre-ordered Imperial scorpions only to arrive and be told that they had been sold to someone else! (Charming I thought, well at the time I think my thoughts were somewhat stronger than that). If I hadn't set off on a wild goose chase I could have had an extra posting day. As it was I ended up going supermarket shopping on the way back (I didn't have to worry about leaving the scorpions in a hot car!). I met an old lady who thought I looked just like her daughter in-law. She said I must have a double, it amused me because I could certainly use a clone right now. With another me on board I might just be able to get back on top of things. I am gearing up for my holiday now. We are off to Cyprus for a few days at the beginning of May and I can't wait! (Hubby is delighted that I insisted we went when the snakes are coming out of hibernation).

I really do feel that the bug room is full to capacity and I need to get selling more. I have been putting lots of special offers on the website and I have been making a real effort to add more info to the spider section and get to grips with the workings of the website (not easy for a technophobe). Sorry, I know that Facebook has fallen by the wayside. I 'know' I need to reply to messages and post things and read things and look at things etc. but it just hasn't happened this week. I don't have a clue what I'm doing with it and I just don't have the time to learn but please don't think I have forgotten my Facebook page or that I'm deliberately ignoring you. It is high on a very long list of 'things to do'. I intend to spend today feeding and cleaning in my bug room and tomorrow catching up with paperwork in my office.

Stick insects! What to do with them? I love stick insects, they were the main part of my business at one time (many years ago) but they just aren't popular anymore and I don't have the space for the necessary large cages or the time for all the bramble collecting. It is a real dilemma, I have been slowly 'recycling' them to the birds in my garden. The nesting Blue Tits and Robins are happy to eat them. It seems very sad but nobody wants them. I will have to have a proper clear out before I go away but I can't quite let go. I have realised as I've got older that I am a hoarder at heart, I hate throwing out objects let alone real live creatures but there is only one of me and I need to toughen up. If I were really sensible I would part with all the 'common' stick insects but I can't quite do it (I don't think).

Tarantulas are certainly the way forward and I have plenty of those. Scorpions too are becoming more popular and I had quite a bit of success breeding them in 2014 but I still have lots to learn. I am edging towards bugs that can be left for a few days. I have realised that the plant eating bugs that I adore are very time consuming and need constant care (that's probably why they are so damn unpopular!). I have a large cage of Horse-head grasshoppers and beautiful bright green Katydids, they are two of my favourites but I must have sold only half a dozen of each in the last month. Millipedes are going well and I was really pleased to see tiny babies in my Ghana Fire millipedes box and also I have managed to breed a new species of bright red, Fire millipedes. Both will appear on my website when they get a little larger.

I read in Pet Product Marketing magazine that Exo Terra vivariums have won the award of "Reptile product of the year". I was pleased to see this and think it is a well deserved accolade. They are such good quality and so well designed. I bought new vivariums for my snakes last year and only realised after I had spent a couple of hundred pounds that they are very poor quality. I needed vivariums that stacked on top of each other and sadly the Exo Terra cannot be placed on top of each other.

Finally my neighbour opposite said something that had me falling about laughing this week. She was saying how she never sees me anymore and that I am always dashing about doing something or other for everyone (mostly my mother in-law and nephew's family). Anyway she said she's sure I should have a place in heaven but I would probably be too exhausted to climb the stairs! Very funny and quite clever I thought.