Watching our Olympic gymnasts win a medal was amazing!

Watching our Olympic gymnasts win a medal was amazing! We had a fantastic time on Monday, for a few minutes Great Britain had the silver medal but then came the enquiry and Team GB were awarded bronze. The atmosphere was electric in the stadium and I am back there tomorrow watching the men's trampolining, again with my daughter. We both recall a conversation that we had years ago when it was first announced that London was to host the Olympic games. Georgie was about 11 or 12 and begged me to take her to watch. I said "by then you will be taking me" and sure enough she is now 20 and I made her drive down to London to catch the Tube!

I am writing this blog a day early as I won't be around tomorrow. I still have very few orders but plenty of things to do. We are helping our son move on Saturday and next week I will again be out and about for a couple of days. I will be posting orders on Monday and Thursday (possibly Wednesday too). Thankfully I haven't had any problems with the post this week, there have been no reported delays due to the Olympics.

Unfortunately the Giant Train millipedes that I was expecting yesterday did not arrive. I stayed in all day listening for the doorbell and then discovered that they had not been sent! Hopefully they will be with me next week. I haven't had much new in this week but I have rearranged quite a few of my cages and therefore updated some of the items on my website. It is really difficult to keep up with everything. I tend to underestimate some items and don't always realise when they are showing 'out of stock' on the site. I have bought in a few new spiders today but as yet I haven't had time to sort them out and enter them on the website.

I finally got around to looking through my multitude of millipede boxes and discovered tiny babies in two of the Ghana Fire Red millipede cages. They are just little white blobs at the moment but I have put in lots of new leaf litter so hopefully they will thrive and become proper little millipedes. I am really pleased as they are quite a new species and I don't know of anyone else who has bred them. They are very pretty, not the usual brown colour and a large, stocky species too. I certainly think while money is so tight for everyone that I should concentrate on breeding what I do have and not buy in as many new animals. It is easy to become overwhelmed and I certainly don't want to neglect any of my little creatures. I do have a lot of family things lined up during the school summer holidays so it is probably best not to overdo it. It is also difficult when parcels are arriving here, our deliveries are so erratic that the post can arrive at any time of the day. My lovely next door neighbours are happy to take in parcels for me but they have not been in the best of health lately so it isn't fair to impose on them when I am out and about so much. There are many problems when running a business alone, it certainly isn't like having parcels delivered to a business premises where there is always someone in.

Before the rain set in again (I got soaked earlier when collecting food for the bugs) and we actually had some sun for a few days, I dragged my daughter off 'snake hunting'. A local guy told me that there are lots of Adders to be seen along an old railway track near here. We searched and searched but found nothing as usual. However we did come to a meadow which was full of wild flowers and beautiful butterflies. There were lots of different species but no Small Tortoiseshell. I think they are actually becoming extinct, I haven't seen one this year and yet a few years ago they seemed to be our most common butterfly. I'm not sure if the meadow was actually planted or just grew like that but it was lovely.

Well I had better go and sort out my new spiders as they are still in their boxes. I picked up my weekly supply of crickets so they will need some sorting out too. I will be devoting Sunday to feeding all my spiders, I don't usually do them all in one day but with so much going on at the moment, it is the only day that I can find to do it. I have been a little naughty this week and ignored quite a few enquiries asking about things that I don't have. I don't think I have moaned too much in this blog so I feel entitled to whinge about the amount of people who ring up and ask for advice on something that they have purchased elsewhere. It is really difficult to know what to say without being rude. I often get asked for advice on animals that I don't even keep. Perhaps I should refer them to my best mate Mr Google! The trouble with whinging on here is that some of my 'proper customers' think that I might mean them. If you have ordered from me or are intending to then please ask away. I am more than happy to answer sensible questions and I never mind discussing how to care for things or measuring individual spiders. I just don't want people moaning about something they have bought elsewhere. They are generally complaining about the person who has sold it to them. The only thing that I have to say about that is "you should have got it from me"!