Technology!
Technology! Oh my goodness, I think my brain is overflowing with all this online stuff. I am slowly getting there, I realised long ago that Facebook was a pretty important place to be in the 21st century but it has taken until this year to really embrace it. Although I moan a lot (in general really), I can't imagine life without technology now. I love my iPhone and iPad, I love my sat-nav and Google is like a best friend who I speak to every day! I am actually looking forward to my Apple Mac computer arriving next week (it should have been this week but nobody told me that the cost was over my card limit so it had to be reordered for next week).
What a difference a week makes, last Friday was great fun (the Friday before the "unfortunate incident" occurred, certainly not fun). My friend and I went up to London for the filming of a new television show. Thankfully I wasn't required in front of the camera, I just set up a scorpion for one of the rounds. The scorpion is now called Ellie after the comedian Ellie Taylor, who took a shine to her. She is a particularly beautiful scorpion (the comedian herself being very attractive, not sure what she would make of being compared to a giant scorpion?), I took along an understudy who wasn't quite so perfect and thankfully wasn't needed. We met several well known actors, you may have seen my Selfie with Sue Perkins, a very nice lady. These people are clearly used to Selfies and I have made a note to practice posing as I am obviously useless at it! I did have a comment on my post saying that it wasn't the best picture of me but all I can say is "you should see the one of me and Hugh Dennis". I think I was talking, he looks great but I look? well let's just say I won't be posting it anywhere.
I am also trying again with Instagram. I think 'trying' is the right word, all these hash tags, editing, lighting, sharing, following, are totally confusing but since my super friend/customer Martin gave me another lesson last week, I feel I must make an effort.
Emails! I like to hear that everything has arrived ok, I like to hear that people are pleased with their purchases, updates on orders and photos of bugs in their new homes. I am happy to measure spiders and have a general bit of chit chat but I am often deluged with emails asking for care advice, info on pets that aren't even bugs, advice on tanks and heating etc. These questions are fine but they need to be on the phone, not email. I hate to ignore emails but I am getting to the stage where I may need to as constantly answering emails is stopping me getting on with anything else, not to mention driving my family nuts as I am always in my office, on my computer. Also and not an insignificant fact, I have realised that most of the people who send endless streams of emails actually order nothing. I try to encourage people to call when the questions are complicated but I certainly don't want to upset potential customers. I'm not sure what the answer is and if you are reading this I very much doubt that you are one of these people so don't stop emailing me!
You may have noticed my pink information box has reappeared. Please help if you can, I have had a couple of people saying that they were unable to order and that they were unable to post a comment on my blog. I really want my new website to be more interactive and I need to be told of any problems or I won't know there is a problem and then it will go unfixed. My super website guy changed the payment system on the site yesterday and it now has a little survey attached. I was delighted that the first order to appear afterwards had a brief note telling me that all was well. It is impossible for me to test these things myself and my web guy needs to see the fault on his system in order to repair it. Please join in!!!
Ok, got to get a move on, nothing exciting planned for this Friday but as usual I have plenty to do. I would like to get my Christmas card photo sorted this weekend. I have got the idea and have bought the props, now I just need to get it all set up and take the photos. It is sure to be the usual chaos. Escaped bugs everywhere and me tearing my hair out. My web guy suggested yesterday that a web cam in my bug room would be good on the website. I am not sold on the idea, I constantly talk to myself, talk to the animals, sing and say the odd rude word and thinking about it, I did have cause to take my shirt off yesterday when a spider that I was feeding ran up my sleeve - no not a good idea (not unless it has a time delay on it and can be edited!).
A couple of quick bits, I'm doing really well with my scorpions, lots of babies from lots of species. They are not all on the website as they need to grow a bit before I would sell them. I have now updated my 'notes to visitors' on the website, so do take a look if you would like to call or are near enough or are en-route somewhere else. I don't want to be put off meeting people because of one idiot but I will clearly be more careful and I will be cautious of people arranging to call via Facebook. On that note I must just say thanks to everyone for being so supportive about the incident two weeks ago. I have had some hilarious messages, very few of them I could share with you in my blog! I am glad that I didn't name this guy, I think someone might have sorted him out for me and I don't want to spend Christmas in prison for inciting it.
The counter on my new site shows me how many people read this blog and shows that I have quite a following. It's great to be loved, I just need to make some money now!