Half term mayhem

Half term mayhem, lots to do with the animals, lots to do with the family and thankfully lots of orders to post off. It's just a shame that the weather has been so awful, we have had non-stop rain here. Wednesday I was supposed to be on an arranged "butterfly and mini-beasts" walk with my nephew's children but it was cancelled as there was absolutely no chance of seeing any butterflies in the cold and wet! We ended up going bowling and guess who got three strikes in a row? I was super excited (Max, aged 11 still beat me because up until that point my score was only 1). We went bowling with a voucher that I won some time ago and I know it is truly unbelievable when we got home I received an email telling me that I have won another cruise! I am a competitions nut and you may recall that I have won two cruises before. This time we are off to Cyprus, Turkey and Israel in September. I must get back to the bugs but I will just say that we had already booked a summer holiday to Cyprus in four weeks time!

 I have sold quite a few tarantulas this week but they haven't really made a dent in my current, vast collection. Later today I have Giant Train millipedes, scorpions, Trap Door spiders and you guessed it more tarantulas arriving. You may have noticed that I have had a fair number of short term special offers appearing on my website. They certainly seem to generate a lot of interest but obviously I don't want to sell too much stock at these extremely cheap prices, so if you see an offer grab it there and then. Once they switch off, they may not come back on again.

 The bug room really is heaving, I do wish it was double the size, that would be perfect. I love having the bugs indoors, it is much easier than when they were at the bottom of the garden but I need more space! Talking of the bug room, my hubby has plans to fix the leaking roof in my office and bug room this weekend. He has bought a load of 'lengths of white plastic' and intends to make a new gully for the rain water. Fingers and toes crossed that it actually works this time. My nephew is a roofer and has had several goes but the water always leaks in and at times pours in! It has been a problem since we moved here 11 years ago, the roof design is crazy but as the extension is on the building line there is nowhere to move the gutter to. We are stuck with it in the middle of the roof and it causes huge problems.

 Onto something nicer - I have had some lovely emails this week and some super reviews posted on my website. I must say a special thanks to Nick who has written several  in depth and complimentary reviews. I would also like to thank some of my regular customers like Alex, Craig and Stuart, who have all placed orders this week. It has been a very busy but also very rewarding week. I am acutely aware that there are a lot of other people running bug supply businesses these days, long gone are the days when I was more or less the only bug supplier. I therefore appreciate all the orders that I receive, there are times when I really don't feel I can keep going as I work so hard looking after everything but can't sell enough to make a wage (and then when things breed, I have even more to look after). I am not good at prioritizing, I know that but I am unlikely to change now. I give everything my full attention even if it isn't worth a bean!

 I received this email a few days ago:

 Many years ago, when I was a teenager and you were a new trader, I was a regular customer and received regular product sheets from you through the post. This was before the days of home PCs or the internet. You used to sell butterfly eggs and I believe chrysalises.

 Now that I have grandchildren living with me I wanted to interest them in nature and metamorphosis, but you don't seem to offer Lepidoptera. I would like to acquire some British species which we could then release. Can you recommend anywhere I can buy them?

 Sorry if I have made you feel old. :)

 John

 Well John, you certainly did make me feel ancient but you also gave me a good laugh and as I have no private pension and 11 years to go until I can claim a state pension I will most likely be going for some time yet!

 Lastly a moan! What is going on with phone numbers? When did they become such a secret? I cannot believe or understand why a number of people are putting a line of zeros in the telephone information box when registering on my website. How am I supposed to contact you if there is a problem with your order??? I am thinking of putting a note in my terms to state that my live guarantee will be null and void unless all customers let me have a phone number. If this applies to you, you have been warned!

 It looks like the tarantulas on my website will have to stay as they are. I was hoping to group all the different sizes together with one entry per tarantula species but it seems there is then a problem with special offers. I wouldn't be able to reduce a specific size of spider, it would have to be a reduction on the species and that just wouldn't work for me. If I were to have a special offers page I think it may be hard to keep on top of and also the full price would still be charged if a customer ordered from the regular tarantulas page, rather than the offers page. I could also potentially sell the same spider twice. It all sounds too complicated for me. Hopefully I will get time to speak to my web guy next week but for the time being I have shelved the idea.

 The sky is looking very black as I type this, will it ever stop raining? What happened to summer? It's a good job I have two holidays booked!!