The things I get myself into!

The things I get myself into! I can't believe I signed up to do a stand at the AES exhibition, I just hope all this effort is worth it. I was working non-stop beforehand and all I have done is pile more work upon myself, I need a holiday but I have no chance of taking one at the moment. I am writing this blog a day early because tomorrow I will be packing bugs, labelling, printing care sheets and generally sorting out everything for the exhibition. The trouble is that I cannot compete on price when it comes to spiders as I don't import and there will be people at the exhibition who have imported spiders and other animals especially for the show (I spend my time caring for the animals that I keep, therefore ensuring that they go out in the best possible condition and judging by the super emails that I get each week, people are on the whole are very happy with that). I will be packing cockroaches, stick insects, beetles, millipedes, grasshoppers etc. but I will also be taking my male spiders in the hope of either selling them or finding a mate for them. There will of course be many people with captive bred animals and I hope to pick up some new stock, hopefully some bargains (I am useless at haggling) and I will be taking along my shopping list of customers 'wants'.

I love this sunshine and long may it continue but in reality it will soon be time for packing the bugs up with their own little heat packs. I have just ordered a whole range of cardboard boxes to see me through for a while. I need larger boxes for the winter as the animals require more insulation, unfortunately this means the parcels are heavier and therefore more expensive to post. I am hoping to keep the postage at £8.00 per order but I may need to consider putting it up in the New Year. Talking of weight, I went over to the woods yesterday (just across the road from where we live). I collected a large bag of dried leaves for the millipedes and fruit beetle larvae, I also collected some rotten wood, and bramble for the stick insects. I really struggled to carry it, so when I got home I thought I would weigh my bag, it weighed 11.7kg no wonder I was so shattered. I also risked getting shot as the pheasant shooters were out. I had almost finished cutting the bramble when I heard the first shots, I just grabbed my bag and made a hasty (as hasty as I could manage) exit.

I seem to be plagued with unwanted telephone calls at the moment, they are mostly sales calls. I tend to use my mobile for most calls these days. It is very handy as I keep it on my belt. My biggest bug bear with the mobile is that there is no engaged tone. If I am talking on the phone, the phone continues to ring for the caller. I therefore end up with messages to follow up when I have finished a call. It would be so much easier if there was an engaged tone and then the caller would know I was using the phone. I'm not sure if other mobiles have an engaged tone but Vodafone certainly don't. I recently switched my work landline answer phone to 'answer only' and the recorded message then gives my mobile number. The effect of this is that the sales calls get filtered out as these people will rarely ring a mobile. I would probably do away with my work landline except that the internet is registered to that number and I have an extension in my bug house, which is handy. I certainly have too many phones. In my office, I have two landlines, my regular mobile and three 'comping' mobiles (to enter text competitions and other competitions where I don't want to be bothered on my 'proper' number).

Well I had better get a move on, I have plenty to do today, pack and post orders, feed my smaller spiders, feed the stick insects with the bramble that I collected yesterday (it is in a bucket of water on the bug house verandah at the moment). I have a photographer calling this afternoon to take pictures of me and Teddi, I mentioned a while ago that I won £1,000 in a pet competition. The company want to photograph us with a giant cheque for their promotional material. Although I'm pretty busy, I could hardly say no when they have given me £1,000! (long since spent, the real cheque arrived weeks ago).

Hope to see some of you at the exhibition, I searched the loft and finally found my rather eye catching exhibition table cloth (bright yellow with VIRGINIA CHEESEMAN printed all over it) and as promised I made a large name badge with bugs on it, so you shouldn't miss me.

I like to get my husband to okay my blog before I upload it to my site. He said that perhaps I should point out that our daughter Georgie will be manning the table for much of the day. He said that people may think she is me, I should be so lucky, she is 19 and I am somewhat older!