I’m back!
I’m back! From a very relaxing, wonderful holiday in Cyprus. We returned on Wednesday night and I haven’t stopped running since, there is just so much to catch up on. It was lovely to go for ten days rather than the usual week but it’s surprising how much difference those extra couple of days make. I got quite into Facebook while I was there and posted lots of pictures, the post about the Wolf spider was by far my most successful post ever. I will put one of the photos of this super impressive spider on the blog this week.
My bug room did pretty well in my daughter’s capable hands. She followed all the instructions and things are looking good. A few of my Exo Terra vivariums became a bit too dry. This was due to the problems that we had with the power supply to the room before we set off. I think the entire bug room and my office need rewiring but as a temporary measure we plugged the main oil filled radiator into the house electricity supply just in case the circuit blew again and unfortunately the radiator was turned up too high. When we left the weather was very cold but when we returned it was hot and sunny.
I have so many things to say but I have to keep this blog relatively short as I need to get on with feeding the bug eating animals today (a mammoth task when you have as many tarantulas and scorpions as I do, not to mention all the Assassin bugs and true spiders). I collected my nephew’s girls from school yesterday (as I always do on Thursdays) and we popped down to Pets at Home for cricket supplies. Therefore I have no excuse for not getting on with the feeding today. Whilst in the playground, Izzy’s teacher came out and asked if I could bring some bugs into the classroom before half term. I am happy to do this as I am determined to get back on track with starting up my “Ginny’s Jungle” parties and although I have done a couple of practice birthday parties I haven’t yet taken the bugs into a group (Izzy left Rainbows to go up to Brownies before I could organise a visit). Honestly, I know I’m always saying it but there is never any time! The holiday really was just what I needed to recharge my batteries.
I will be restocking this month and I have already ordered some new millipedes, among them the highly sought after Madagascan Fire millipedes and the amazing Giant Green Pill millipedes. I will also be getting some ‘meat eating’ beetles and scorpions. Then in a couple of weeks I will hopefully be getting in more Jungle Nymph stick insects, Giant prickly stick insects and some of the more unusual tarantulas as well as other interesting bugs and beasties. That said I am trying not to go too mad as I need to get the flyers sorted and website organised for my animal parties.
I must just mention that while on holiday we did a lot of bug hunting and especially snake hunting. This time I actually saw some live ones and no dead ones on the road! On our first day I saw a huge black Whip snake, it was beautiful and came right up to me. Sadly, I was so excited that I couldn’t get my brain into gear quick enough to get a photo and she disappeared down a hole. The next snakes that I saw were two highly venomous Blunt Nosed vipers under an old metal sign. An awesome sight but I really didn’t expect to encounter them that day and I was in shorts and flip flops. I held the sign up long enough for my husband to run over and take a couple of snaps. Unfortunately, it was very sunny so he couldn’t see the screen on the iPhone properly and the photos are not as good as I would have liked. He only got one of the snakes and wouldn’t let me go back again to get a better shot! I’m lucky that he got any shot really as I didn’t realise at the time that he didn’t know there was a snake and secondly he didn’t know that it was venomous. He said I was shouting so loudly for him to take a photo that he just dutifully snapped away. When we looked at the photos later he said “oh, that was the same type of snake that I saw crossing the road the other day”. I wasn’t best pleased to hear that as he had told me it was a Whip snake and I had spent at least an hour searching for it, alone, as he was sitting in the car reading his Kindle. My hubby has a fitness tracker and kept telling me how many steps ‘we’ had taken that day. Now that we are back I want to get one for myself. I must have done considerably more steps than him as I kept jumping out the car and searching the undergrowth for creatures. For me life doesn’t get any better than exploring the wilds of Cyprus in the sunshine! I can’t believe that my hubby says he would be quite happy to never go snake hunting again, really??? (sadly, I know he means it). He’s off on his annual motorbike trip around Europe with his mates soon, now that I wouldn’t fancy. Far too scary and I wouldn’t be able to see anything going at that speed but perhaps that’s the point!
One last thing that I must say and then everything else will have to wait for next week. Just before I went away I discovered that I hadn’t been receiving notifications of new product reviews on my website. I thought I hadn’t had any for ages but then I realised (with the help of my web guy) that when the site was upgraded to be more mobile friendly (long before Christmas), the notifications had been turned off. I have now enabled all the new reviews but don’t have time to thank everyone individually as I have always done. So please know that if you were one of the people who posted a review I am very, very grateful and most definitely want to say a big “Thank You”. Reviews are very important these days and I am always grateful when someone takes the time to contribute.