I thought last week was busy!

I thought last week was busy! This week has been incredible. I decided to buy in lots of new stock before the half term week and before the weather becomes too bad. It seemed like a good plan but in reality I have over done it a bit. I have spent every morning packing up and posting out orders, every afternoon housing and feeding both old and new animals and every evening doing emails and paperwork. I do intend to take a little time for me next week and get out and about with the family (well that's the plan). Everything seems to be going well in the bug house, considering how many new creatures I have, I actually feel quite organised. Thanks to my endless lists I know exactly what has been fed and tended to this week and those that will have to be done over the weekend. I always mean to have the feeding finished by Saturday but I rarely do. I have some super new stick insects arriving this evening. I visited the local Homebase car park yesterday to stock up on bramble. Unfortunately the farmer has erected a huge fence along the woods near me. No more nipping over the chain link to cut bramble. It was a bit dodgy at times when they were shooting pheasants, so perhaps it's for the best!

Spider, scorpion and cockroach sales are all very high but I do hope the new stick insects will sell ok. I really love stick insects, there are so many different types, they are all 'friendly' and will happily exist together unlike the spiders and most scorpions. They just don't seem to be such popular pets at the moment but I have been running my business long enough to know that pet keeping goes in cycles just like everything else. I don't want to give up on stick insects but as I am always so busy they do have to pay their way. I started off with stick insects all those years ago, my first ones came from Harrods when I was about eight. I am planning a trip to Harrods before Christmas, I will certainly visit the pets department and I may suggest that they start stocking them again.

It has turned a lot colder this week, we had our first proper frost yesterday. I have now started putting heat packs in my parcels. They work amazingly, I've said it before but I don't know how I ever managed without them. In reality I don't think parcels are out in the cold much at all. Wherever the parcels go the people go too and nobody wants to be cold. All post offices and sorting offices are heated and I'm sure the delivery vans are too. We have one delivery driver that I call 'Mr Shorts', whatever the weather or time of year he always wears shorts. I'm guessing his van is very well heated. I really, really hate the cold. My bug house is so hot that even in mild weather I feel cold once I step outside. Talking of keeping my bug house warm, our energy supplier did an annual review this week and decided that my monthly direct debit needs to go up hugely. I have tried to persuaded them that the amount is wrong but my hubby says he will have to insulate the walls of the bug house. It is a large log cabin, the floor and ceiling are insulated but the walls are just thick wood. I like the idea of the walls being boxed in because then I can have white walls rather than wood. It will be much easier to keep clean but goodness knows when he will get the time to do it. After Christmas he has got to get on with our new kitchen.

I have again been looking at the statistics on my website, I find it fascinating. I 'thought' that most of my customers were male but when I looked at a random section of orders the other day I realised that about a third of my customers are female. Mind you they do say that you can read statistics several ways and it did occur to me that some of those women may have been ordering for partners (a third of people reading this will know that women do everything). I have been so busy this week that I did rope in my hubby to help a bit. He made up some of the housing, printed labels etc. but he doesn't touch the spiders, he read last weeks blog and said that 'flying spiders' would definitely be a problem and if they existed he would never come in the bug house again.

One last thing and then I really must get out to the bugs. I still get a fair number of people calling and wanting to place their order over the phone. It isn't surprising as this was the way I took most of my orders over many years but what does surprise me is the number of people who seem happier to give me their card details than enter them on the website. I feel quite flattered by this but also surprised. Yes, I am totally trustworthy and never had any problems with security (mostly because I was so paranoid about not putting all the details in one place and shredding every order) but the website is totally secure. I am delighted that I no longer have the responsibility, the whole sales process is dealt with by PayPal and that suits me fine.