Not enough of me to go around!

Not enough of me to go around! If I had a clone everything would be fine but as it is there are not enough hours in a day. The major problem this week is that I have hardly been here enough to get my work done. As you all know by now I love lists, I have a daily “must do” list (22 items – I’ve just counted) and I enjoy ticking off the jobs as I go about my day. This week I had full ticks on Monday and Tuesday, then it fell apart for the rest of the week. Wednesday I was asked to go into my great niece’s class to talk about and show some bugs, I actually visited two classes and the preparations before and the putting everything away afterwards took more or less the entire day. Yesterday I sent off my orders and then sadly had a funeral to attend in London. This afternoon I will yet again need to be elsewhere.

On Sunday I am off to a bug show so next week will be taken up with sorting out any new purchases. I am really, really going to ‘try’ to stick to my list and purchase only animals that I realistically think I can either sell or breed. “No more pets” is my motto! I have reserved some Jungle Nymph stick insects which is great, they are my favourite stick insect. I expect to buy some rarer tarantulas but not come back with lots of cheap but common spiderlings (too much work). My resolve has come about because I have finally decided I have to make time to get Ginny’s Jungle parties off the ground. I’ve done enough practice parties for free, now I need to get serious and charge for my services. Not least because I have quite an outlay ahead of me. Yes, I have all the animals I could possibly need but I must pay for my new website to be constructed (of course I will be getting Super Simon to do this www.uksitebuilder.net), artwork, leaflet design, printing, advertising – the list goes on. I did manage to visit a print shop yesterday and the guy seemed very nice, he has sent me some prices so I will take a look at them (when I get a chance). I’m sure he thought I was nuts, never mind the fact I sell pet bugs, I looked like I had been dragged though a hedge backwards, I had just finished packing up my orders and was en route to collect flowers for the funeral. I was in a mad rush to get back, showered, changed, pick up my sister and get to the funeral on time so I was babbling more than usual but I did leave him my mock up leaflet to look at when I’d gone.

Amongst all this chaos the bugs are doing great, I love the new Madagascan millipedes. I was told that the Giant Pill millipedes like ‘pond slime’. I have several wildlife ponds so I collected what looked like slime to me (blanket weed) and sure enough they devoured it! Where do these millipedes live, near a river??? It’s not something I would have thought to offer them, that’s for sure. I gave myself a shock when I was feeding them, I collected the weed in a plastic tub and as I picked the weed up it slid through my fingers in a most peculiar way and seemed to scratch me as it went. I then looked down and saw a big, fat newt in the tub. Luckily it was fine and I put her back in the pond. I felt so awful giving our huge fish away to a friend before the holiday but I’m really glad I did as the large pond is now crystal clear and teeming with wildlife. I can actually see newts, tadpoles, dragonfly nymphs and plenty more creatures swimming around and crawling about (so much better than boring old fish). I’m told they are very happy in their new home and I’ve been invited round to see them (sorry, I have to say it “I will when I have time”).

Must just finish with this lovely email that I received a couple of days ago:
I just received an order from you today containing a selection of roaches, assassin beetles, fishing spider and Chile Flame and just wanted to say a massive THANK YOU!!
There is honesty no one else I would go to now for my bugs! I'm absolutely over the moon with everything from the health of all the critters to the fantastic packaging!!
So once again thank you so so much for doing what you do and supplying us fellow addicts with absolutely beautiful creatures!!!

This is why I spend my life running around like a blue a**** fly!

(Photo this week: The newt that nearly got fed to the Giant Pill millipedes)