Reliability is the theme this week
Reliability is the theme this weak. The main reason why people buy from me, even if I am not the cheapest, is because I am the most reliable. I always post parcels when I say I will, I don't lie about the sex of my animals. I quite often don't know the sex, especially of the spiders but I am happy to tell you this. I don't tell you that they are all female and then keep my fingers crossed as I know some other suppliers do. Last Friday I wrote in my blog that I was off to Reading to collect a competition win. Reading is the best part of an hour away, I got to the shopping centre only to find that the girl dealing with the competition had gone off sick and nobody else knew where my prize was. The time and location had been arranged two days earlier but nobody there was that fussed. On Sunday I tidied, hovered and waited for a plasterer to come and give us a quote on our dining room / kitchen. I gave him half an hour and then rang. He had completely forgotten and was enjoying himself at a car show while my husband and I waited. Last but not least there is a young guy in the Midlands who owes me money. He seems to think that if he ignores my phone calls and emails I will go away.
Other than this bee in my bonnet, everything else is going well. The bug house looks like a bomb has hit it but it will be neat and tidy-ish by tomorrow's Open Afternoon. A few people have expressed an interest, it is ages since I had an Open Afternoon so I do hope it will be a success. Quite a few people seem to work on a Saturday these days. I have been sorting out my spiders this week and discovered a few that I didn't know I had. My website is generally very accurate but for some reason the Texas Brown adult that I have was not showing on the site. I have a lovely Indian Ornamental spider but I have no idea which species as the label seems to have disappeared! I haven't bought in any new tarantulas in weeks so this is a very good time for people to buy a 'small' sized one as none of them will be newly hatched. I am trying to add more of the grown on spiderlings to my new 'small-medium' category but it is a long job so several of the small spiders would fit into this category. Obviously when I do find time to upgrade them to the next size the price will go up too. I am being very sensible about not getting too many live creatures in before my holiday next month but I do have a number of Jungle Nymph stick insects coming today. I couldn't resist when someone emailed and asked if I would like to buy them. They are the most spectacular stick insect and sadly they are becoming more and more rare. The females grow to a huge size and the males have beautiful cerise wings. I hope I can sell most of them before I go away. They should be here this morning and then I will put them on the website this afternoon. It will probably be later this afternoon as I am expecting a little visitor at lunch time. I am looking after my 18 month old great niece for the afternoon while her mum and older brother and sister go to see Shrek 3D at the cinema. She is absolutely adorable but I'm not sure how much I will get done with her 'helping' me. I have a pile of emails to reply to from yesterday, which may have to wait until this evening. Yesterday was a particularly busy day, being the end of the week I had a lot of parcels to get off.
A couple of snippets before I get on with the day (I got up early, it is on 7.15am now). I found baby newts in my wildlife pond! I was very excited, I pinched half a dozen adults from my sister's garden last year and these have obviously stayed around and bred. Many of the Barking Birdeater spiders that I have left, have laid egg sacs (I thought they were nearly all adult females). Do let me know if your one has babies. I hate animals being taken from the wild but it is great to get them reproducing. I am expecting the patter of many tiny feet in due course.
See you tomorrow -possibly!