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The recession is over

The recession is over, so they say. Certainly I have never had so many orders. I think now that Christmas is gone and the snow has disappeared, everyone is thinking of spring. I can't wait until it is February, then I can say 'it is spring next month'. How satisfying that will be, I so hate the winter. This morning I had to get up really early as I had a photographer calling to borrow a Jungle Nymph stick insect for the day. I didn't pack the stick insect yesterday because it was too cold to bring her into the house for the night but I hadn't realised how dark it would be this morning.

Most of my week seems to have been taken up by packing orders, visiting the post office and then sorting invoices for the next lot to go out. I wish Special Delivery worked at the weekend, it would certainly even out the week for me as I can only post orders Monday - Thursday. Monday is always the busiest day of the week. I plan to catch up on a mountain of paperwork today. It is amazing how quickly it piles up. I spent hours doing paperwork last Sunday (yes, I know I said I was going to have the day off!). Having visitors calling by appointment last Saturday worked pretty well. One guy was an hour late but at least he called to let me know. I have a couple of people coming tomorrow. I think 'open afternoons' are unworkable for me these days. I know people like to just turn up but it means my daughter has to stay in and help as I cannot be in the bug house and answering the door at the same time.

My web guy is still working hard, he really is great. Every week something new seems to crop up that needs altering on my site. I am such a technophobe that I don't have a clue but he always springs into action when I point out a problem. I put in a claim for the postage on a parcel that was delayed in early December and received a reply this week. It seems the parcel was incorrectly addressed and therefore took an extra day for Royal Mail to find it. Obviously I didn't get reimbursed for the postage and I had refunded my customer for his order. This put me considerably out of pocket and after making enquiries it seems my customer was under 18. I would not expect youngsters to be able to order from my site (you need to be over 18 to open a PayPal account) but I now have it written into my terms that I do not accept orders from under 18s. I am continually amazed by how many of my customers do not enter their address correctly (all lower case and no punctuation etc) but from now on I will check the address on the Royal Mail website before putting in a claim. Royal Mail cannot be held responsible for incorrectly addressed parcels and neither can I!

I managed to give something back to my web guy this week. I sent him a Mexican Red Knee tarantula. He had wanted one for ages but it took me time to find a decent sized one for him. He is intending to set up a website for 'Bella' and she will have her own blog! Blogging is certainly popular now. I did join up to Twitter (so that I could enter competitions on it) but it was too complicated and time consuming so I gave it up. I know lots of people go on forums but I hate them, for me they just seem to be grief and people generally hide behind a pseudonym. I won't go into details but I realised from reading on a forum this week that I had been taken for a ride over a good deed that I did for someone last year. Most people that I deal with are really nice, quite a few animal people are a bit eccentric (I have been accused of this, even by my own husband) but some people I suppose are just not nice! I must add here that I often moan about people asking daft questions but I think there is a rule. If you think you are a pest or bothering me unnecessarily then you are probably wrong and are not a pest at all. The people who waste my time are almost always totally oblivious to that fact! Those of you who email 'I'm sorry to bother you' or 'I know you are busy' are generally asking perfectly reasonable questions and I am more than happy to reply!

Thanks to all those people who responded to my blog last week, I had some really nice comments. I was having a bad week but I'm more on top of it now (just about anyway). I saw my ideal job on the TV a few days ago where they sent for the snake catcher on the beach in Australia. I could get paid for walking around in the boiling hot sunshine, chatting to people and looking for snakes!!


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