Is everyone on holiday? I wish I was!

Is everyone on holiday? I wish I was! I have had a really busy week looking after all my animals and sorting out the multitude of new spiders that came in this week and yet I have barely taken a single order! Nearly everyone that I speak to, whatever their business, is saying much the same. It seems there really is very little 'spare money' around at the moment. If it is a choice between food on the table, paying the bills and getting a new pet, I can totally understand people choosing the first option but I do feel like I am working flat out just to stay afloat, at least other people can sit and watch daytime telly if they have no orders. Having said all that everyone keeps teasing me because I laugh as I'm talking about it. It reminds me of the time, many moons ago when I was a City of London police cadet and my report came through to my mum. It said how useless I was at just about everything but how popular I was because I always laughed, smiled and tried my best at every task! Needless to say I never made it into the police force. I'm still scared of the dark, being alone and cry whenever I see anyone upset so it's probably just as well.

I have made myself concentrate and take a proper look at what my website is capable of and I have realised that there are things I can do. I have finally written a newsletter, it has taken me almost two years to get it sorted but it will go out to all those who are subscribed on my website. I will be offering half price postage for the first two weeks of August and I will be doing 'quick special offers', these offers will be very cheap but will only be available for a short time and of course there may not be many available so it is first come first served. I do hope this idea works, I think it will. Just reminding people that I'm still here will be good (30 years next year!). I have been looking at the statistics page on my website (behind the scenes, you can't see it). It shows a lot of different things, such as who buys what and when, which pages are viewed most and who is online at that particular time. I am hoping to get the 'Spider Gallery' sorted out soon but I will need my husband's help and he isn't around much. He is off work this weekend but we are going down to Somerset to visit my aunty for her 90th birthday tomorrow and I'm not sure we will have the time on Sunday but fingers crossed we can make time.

I have been checking out other bug related websites this week and I am amazed to see how many have no contact details. Many have no phone number, no address, lots have nothing to say who runs the site and some don't even have any terms. I spend a lot of time answering emails and some of them are really not related to anything that I do. Lots of people thank me for replying which leads me to believe that they have emailed other people before and just been ignored. I try to answer everyone but I must admit that sometimes I do simply reply saying "please call me", some things are very difficult to explain in an email and I can talk much, much faster than I can type! It is also easy to misread or misinterpret an email or indeed a text. I sent a text to my daughter this week, it was in reply to her text, we were going shopping and I simply put 'no hurry'. She sent me back a text saying "I'm at work, I can't leave until I have finished what I am doing now". I gave her a quick call and pointed out that I meant "there is no hurry, I've got plenty to do here", she said "I thought you meant you were in a real rush and wanted me home immediately". It was sorted instantly on the phone. So many big companies rely on answer machine services these days, they make it as difficult as possible to get through to a real person. By the time you have listened to all the opening hours, a dozen departments that you may wish to speak to and then get put through to an answer machine that wants you to leave your details so that someone can call you back, it really doesn't seem worth the effort and they are often premium rate numbers too. I do try to always be friendly and available but it is amazing how frequently my mobile seems to go off when I am standing in the queue at the post office and really can't answer it. When I am out and about and answer the phone, I usually try hard not to mention tarantulas, cockroaches etc, it always causes funny looks from anyone within earshot. I get lots of emails letting me know that orders have arrived ok and telling me what a great service I provide and basically 'how great I am', these emails really brighten up my day!

I did go and look at plastic containers last Friday, I bought a few but most of them were made of brittle plastic (I think it is called polypropylene). I will stick with my Asda plastic boxes for now, they are made of a more supple plastic. The trouble with the brittle plastic is that the lids often split when I try and make air holes in them. I brought some samples home and found that it was very difficult to get the lids on and off. This isn't much use when I have so many young spiders to feed. I need to be able to take the lids off quickly or I would spend all day feeding them. My hubby tried opening one of the boxes and it split immediately so it's back to the drawing board but someone did reply to last week's blog with an interesting idea of where to get cheap plastic boxes.

Well another week over, thankfully I survived the Hen do last weekend. I will keep plodding on and hope sales improve next week. Believe me I really appreciate every order that I get, I never take things for granted and if you are not in a position to place an order right now, I would like to thank you for reading my blog and perhaps mentioning my website to your friends (probably best to just mention it to those who like creepy crawlies!).