I'm still standing, well just about

I'm still standing, well just about. This year has been truly awful for my family and then just as I was launching my Ginny's Jungle parties I found myself needing an operation. My first party was booked for the day of the operation (honestly you couldn't make it up). Thankfully it wasn't a birthday party but a Beavers group so I managed to bring the ‘party’ forward a week and it went brilliantly. Anyway, I'm up and running again, all I need now is some customers! Orders are very thin on the ground, it is a tough time for many small businesses. In order to keep my online shop running I am going to need to run the party business alongside it. I know of so many pet businesses that have gone under in the last year but after all these years and still another 9 years until I get a state pension I will adapt and keep going! (fingers and toes crossed)

I'm loving ‘I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’ this week. The episode with Adam from Emmerdale was hilarious, his fear of spiders was so real and just so funny to watch. I thought being in a shed with spiders and cockroaches was quite normal, literally just another day at the office for me. I did fast forward through the eating challenge though, yuk.

All my bugs are snug in their bug room and all doing well. I have cut things down but I still have many, many creatures to care for on a daily basis.It's always a quiet time of year for my business so I wasn't intending to get any new animals until after Christmas but I was offered some super new stock and just couldn't resist it, I am expecting various tarantulas, scorpions and millipedes at the end of next week. I will be going down to Brighton with hubby for a couple of days next week. We really need a break and I love Brighton, it's such an "anything goes sort of place". I won’t be around to write a blog next Friday but I will make every effort to write one the following week. I know people have missed my “weekly whinge”!

I am making more of an effort with Facebook and have switched the messages function back on. So far so good but if I am inundated with questions that can be answered by even a quick glance on my website, I may have to switch them off again. I intend to really push everything and get fully back on track in the New Year. My New Year’s resolution will almost certainly be “New Year –New Start”, I will buy in plenty of interesting bugs and beasties and promote Ginny’s Jungle parties far and wide (that reminds me that I must get some new leaflets made up specifically for school visits). 

Thanks for all your lovely messages, they did cheer me up when I was having such a tough time, messages like this one:

So glad everything went okay and you're feeling better :)

Wishing you all the very best, Debbie & Steve xx

PS.The Indian Stick Insects you sent us back in February are still going strong and the oldest of their babies are nearly adults now - they're very loved and very spoilt! Thanks for all the pleasure they give us :)

Update on the wasps that have taken over my shed at the bottom of the garden: some are still there but most have died off due to the colder weather, the nest looks superb and I will take photos for Facebook and remove the nest for exhibiting once it is fully vacated. I love waspsJ

Some good news! – My lovely husband bought me a beautiful greenhouse. It is much too good for just plants so I hope to find time to have my own little butterfly house in the Spring (how many days is it? I will start counting soon, as you all know by now, I can’t bear the cold). It will take me back to the time when I worked at the London Butterfly House – Happy days.