Business is booming but it’s still only me! I am really pleased that the website, launched only last September, has been such a success. Orders are pouring in but at times it is very difficult to keep up with it all. The beginning of the week is frantic because I have all the orders that have accumulated from Thursday to Sunday, when there is no Special Delivery post. Generally I am getting sorted out by Wednesday and then Thursday is the cut off point and the build up of orders starts all over again.

The weather still continues to be cold and yet again I have had problems with the post. I so rarely lose anything in the post and yet over the last couple of weeks I have had several animals arrive dead (more than I have had in the last couple of years). This is very sad, I actually posted a replacement spiderling on Monday and that too arrived dead. In all my considerable years of running this business I don’t think I have ever had this happen. I ended up refunding the order so the customer ended up with no spider and I ended up considerably out of pocket. Thankfully the lady concerned has been very nice and does realise that I am doing my best. I use heat packs and plenty of insulation but obviously I have no influence over what happens to my parcels in transit. I am glad this lady was nice because I accidently sent her a copy of my notes on the incident. I have a notes facility on my database where I can enter ‘private’ information. When I realised that I had pressed the send button I felt utter panic but thankfully it was a polite entry. My notes are generally very mundane but not always, as I am still plagued by a couple of very unpleasant people. I suppose dealing with so many more people than I once did, I am bound to come across a few difficult people but I could so do without it. Hopefully I won’t have another funeral to attend for a very long time but I am feeling pretty tired and fragile at the moment. Most of my customers/friends are truly lovely.  I have had some really sweet emails this week. Here is just one of them - Would just like to say you have an amazing site here and I could not thank you enough for ur services. Keep the good work up!! And hope you had a wonderful anniversary Xx.

Most things in the bug house are doing well but sadly my huge Paulo Fiery Red Rump tarantula discarded her egg sac. The eggs had not developed properly and had become mouldy. The Natal Brown Birdeater has hidden away under a coconut shell with her egg sac but all looks well and I am expecting my Peruvian Green Velvet egg sac to hatch at any minute. The mummy spider and egg sac are in a large box but I am a bit concerned that the spiderlings may be able to squeeze out under the lid. I think I had better pop out in a minute and put a piece of netting under the lid. I don’t want to discover escaped spiderlings everywhere one morning (they always seem to hatch at night). I have a male Cobalt Blue spider who is raring to go and I am hoping that there will be an adult female in the collection of spiders that are on there way to me. I mentioned the collection last week and I hate to say it but I was expecting them yesterday but they didn’t arrive. I’m sure they will arrive today and hopefully they will be none the worse for wear. I have also got more spiders coming in from Europe next week and I am picking up some scorpions later today. It seems that the importation of Imperial scorpions is about to stop and therefore it is more important than ever to breed this species. I have several gravid females at the moment so hopefully I will have babies soon. Imperial scorpions seem to be able to hang onto their babies until conditions are right. Sometimes they are visibly gravid for several months before giving birth. I’m told that patience is a virtue!

The website continues to show me what sells and what doesn’t and therefore what I should keep and what I shouldn’t. It’s a sad fact that the more common species of stick insects are not great sellers and take up a lot of time. I have put most of my stick insects into one large cage, it makes feeding and cleaning much easier but sorting them out is a nightmare. I have therefore changed the website details to just ‘stick insects’, I will always try to give a mixture but I have far more Giant Thorny than any other species. I have more species of praying mantids than are on the site right now but I am holding onto them until the weather improves. They are one of my favourite bugs but they are quite delicate and moult frequently. It is strange when I look at the ‘best sellers’ on my website because few of them are spiders and yet that is certainly what I sell most of. I suppose that I have a large range of spiders and most people only buy one of any given species, I imagine that’s why they don’t show up as best sellers. I don’t think I sell many plastic pots but they are currently number two on the best sellers list, I suppose that’s because people often buy ten at a time.

I seem to be going on and on so I will take myself off to the bug house now and just finish with - I really hope that we have some warm weather next week!