Sunshine at last this morning

Sunshine at last this morning. What a miserable week it has been, rain and more rain. I am going to a wedding tomorrow so I really hope the sun continues to shine. It has been a busy week with lots of new stock arriving. I really must slow things down a bit soon, the school holidays are always a quieter time so it wouldn't be a good idea to keep buying in, I need to sell some out! With this in mind, I have decided to have a 'Spider Open Day' next Saturday. I am restricting the open day to spiders because I won't have the prices easily to hand for everything else (but if I'm asked in advance I can get other things sorted out). I really hope people will turn up, I have a plan this time (which I am rather worried will backfire on me), I am charging a £10 fee in advance (I would rather have charged £5 but the site is set with a minimum spend of £10). This fee is totally refundable upon any spider purchase on the day but I hope it will stop people messing me about. I am far too busy to get everything ready for an Open Afternoon and then find the only people who come, want to look around and not buy anything. In the good old days in Hounslow, the open afternoons were generally very well attended. Sometimes people did just come to look around and chat, that's fine if there are three or four other people buying. It's clearly an experiment, time will tell if it will work. I need to have appointments because I don't have any help on a Saturday anymore. I can't pay someone to help me if I am not taking any money. It is not easy when the bug house is at the end of the garden, it would be a lot easier if everything were in the house. Unfortunately my family would not be so keen to have the bugs indoors. It is great living in the country but the lack of public transport makes it more difficult to reach me and of course my customers are from all over the UK. I know that some people would love to visit but it is just too far.

I have sold several of the beautiful adult tarantulas that I purchased a couple of weeks ago but I still have some stunning spiders left. It would be good to show these to people, rather than describing them over the phone on in an email. I also have a good range of small and medium spiders. I was pleased to get in some Avicularia versicolor spiderlings this week, they are lovely. The spiderlings are pretty and the adults are amazing. I do like the more 'furry' tarantulas. It is really good to meet people face to face and have a chat but the bug house is generally too chaotic to invite people out there. When I am preparing and packing orders, the floor is covered in boxes and the tables are covered in various things. There is often very little floor space left to walk on. Actually I came across a bugs website recently that has a video link. I checked several times but never found it switched on but it did get me thinking. Lots of people like to read my blog each week, most of them are miles away or indeed in another country. It's another one of my many 'good ideas' but perhaps I could have a video camera set up in my bug house and then people could actually see what I do. I have spoken to my website guy and it looks feasible. I was a bit worried about the fact that I do like to sing along to the radio but my husband assures me that I don't need to have sound on it, which is just as well!

I am trying to make better use of my website, it's amazing what it can do but my ideas tend to be held back by my lack of skill when it comes to anything that isn't living and breathing. My wonderful web guy has just set up the site to accept payment by direct bank transfer. I didn't realise until I spoke to him a couple of days ago that this also enables people to walk into a bank and pay by cash. This could be a real bonus to the people who don't have a bank account. When I switched to an automated website I did lose a few customers who preferred to pay by cash, it would be good to win them back.

I need to get on now as I have the usual Friday paperwork pile to deal with and then I have a dog trainer coming at lunch time to help me with Teddi. Our gorgeous, cuddly Eurasier pup is now 7 months old. We went to puppy training but 'we' need a bit more. She is pretty good at all the standard commands but she is manic and will pile into things without looking where she is going. I really would like to have a bit more control, she narrowly missed a barbed wire fence this week when she was playing with another dog. I still hope to find her 'calm button' but as you all know by now, I am still trying to locate my 'calm button'!