Thank you

Thank you for all your best wishes and certainly your patience waiting for orders. Assuming nothing else happens I intend to post all orders out on Monday and Tuesday when my husband has a couple of days off and can help me. Just to re-cap for those reading the blog and not knowing what I am on about - last week my back seized up, I was in absolutely agony and stretchered off to hospital as I couldn't get up off the floor. Two days later I managed to severely damage one of my eyes. I think the two are linked though, I was given lots of drugs to ease my back and I assume they dehydrated me so when I took out my contact lenses one of them tore my eye. I am usually so fit and healthy that I am completely floored by all this and have seriously never experienced anything like it. At all times my thoughts have been "how on earth am I going to take care of my animals" and it has and continues to be extremely difficult. I don't want to write a book on this so I am trying to keep it short but the pain and loss of sight (which I do believe will return fully) is laying me low. Up until yesterday I seemed to sleep most the day away, it really freaked me out but I suppose it is my body forcing me to rest. Still, I have managed to keep everything alive with a lot of help from family and friends. My poor daughter returned from her holiday on Monday and was horrified to find me in such a state (I banned anyone from telling her while she was away). She has taken some leave this week, as my hubby is just about to change jobs he cannot have more time off. Yesterday was my first day alone and I think I overdid it as I am really struggling to keep my eye open to type now and I feel half asleep again. In the midst of all this my son and daughter in-law were burgled and her 'pride and joy' car was stolen (on her birthday) and our kitchen flooded (lovely nephew came and fixed it). I am miserable and in pain but at least everyone seems to love me, the house resembles a florist shop and have eaten my way through a mountain of chocolate (not good when I clearly can't go in the gym).

Positives in the bug house - my beautiful Madagascar Fishing spider has mated at last. I thought she was eating her second mate but later they untangled and he was fine. I have never seen these spiders before, they are so pretty (I'm sure my hubby would say "if you like that sort of thing"). Feeding my larger tarantulas on Wednesday was incredibly hard. My left eye was shut and because of the pain my right eye kept shutting too. I had a table magnifier glass but it was almost impossible. I do have to laugh now, I ended up arguing with my sub-adult Cameroon Baboon, every time I tried to open the box she kept striking at me. I don't think she understood when I told her I would leave her to starve if she didn't calm down, I don't know how I didn't get bitten by something. I put three boxes aside for my daughter to help me with, they were all fast moving, aggressive species and I couldn't find them however hard I tried. When she came in she was useless! Box one she almost convinced me I was looking at a dead spider and not a moult, I thought it was a moult so I poked about the box with my long tweezers and sure enough it shot out, box two she told me there was no spider in there so I picked up the hide and sure enough the spider was sitting on it about 1cm from my finger, box three "definitely no spider in there" until of course I poked around and it too shot out like a rocket. So the good news is that all the spiders were alive and kicking, the bad news is that my daughter is as useless as the rest of my family and friends. Nobody in my 'real' life ever ventures into my bug room or has a clue how to help.

Whilst trying to feed all my smaller tarantula spiders alone and in pain on Thursday I heard a song on the radio with the lyrics "No matter how much it hurts, and it hurts" never a truer word has been spoken.

My eye is now throbbing, I have to give up and go and lie down! I can't even have a Bacardi and coke. Two things that have brightened my week, a friend sent me a video of his mature female, bright blue Pterinopelma sazimai (I want one!) and my niece's excruciatingly embarrassing story about her trip to the doctor (she would kill me if I repeated it here).