What a week, snow, snow and more snow

What a week, snow, snow and more snow. I hate snow, it may be pretty but it is way too cold! Just like ice cream, it would be lovely if it wasn't so cold. Thankfully the snow seems to be disappearing, even so, I watched a neighbour almost skid into my car on the drive this morning. I posted a few things on Tuesday and then had a pile of invoices ready to go on Wednesday. I couldn't believe it when I woke up and saw inches of snow again. Flackwell Heath instantly came to a halt as our village is perched on a hill. There is no way of reaching us except up one of several very steep climbs. There was no way I could get to the post office as it is down what is probably the steepest hill around. Sadly a guy died in his car there before Christmas. I did manage to post several orders yesterday as the temperature had risen to an amazing 5c. Hopefully they will all arrive in perfect condition today. Most people have been very understanding over the last few weeks, I do try my best.

Lots of people have asked how the bugs are doing in this weather and the answer is absolutely fine. They are tucked up in their cosy log cabin with radiators, heat mats and lights that are going to cost me a fortune in electricity! My spider breeding is going very well indeed. I had a huge Paulo Fiery Red Rump lay an egg sac this week. She was to be posted out but won't be going anywhere now. That leads me onto the pricing of spiders. There is a huge difference in price between some spiders. This is due to several factors, firstly the spider is obviously priced according what I have paid for it. If I have bred the species myself then it will be considerably lower and I have some very 'cheap' spiderlings on my site right now. Some of the largest spiders are highly priced as they may well be gravid and I am therefore in no hurry to sell them and lastly some spiders I just love so I put the price up and hope they won't sell. I can't allow myself to keep them as pets as I am always reminding myself - this is my job (I really want my kitchen done this year). Lastly some of the small spiders are almost into the 'medium' bracket and this will influence the price too.

It was a nightmare digging bramble from beneath the snow this week. I wish the stick insects would wait until the Spring to hatch, it would make life much easier. I am still trying to cut down on praying mantids but they keep breeding. I have a couple of egg cases due to hatch and the Indonesian Flower mantids are now mature and ready to mate. The cockroaches are all going well, I am still in the process of cleaning out the boxes. The new bags of peat that I bought recently are saturated with water. It is very difficult to dry out the peat before putting it in the clean boxes. Cockroaches don't like to be too dry but they cannot live in wet conditions.

I have finally had to resort to buying in both cardboard boxes for posting out orders and plastic pots for housing and sending out spiderlings / mantids. I will still collect boxes from shops when I see them but I cannot keep dashing from shop to shop in search of small boxes. Very few supermarkets put them out anymore (health and safety, they are evidently a fire risk). How did we survive in the good old days before health and safety? Now that most people use digital cameras it is nigh on impossible to get hold of film pots anymore. I was very pleased indeed to receive some free cardboard boxes from a customer of mine yesterday. He runs a packaging company and very kindly said that he can supply me with cheap boxes in the future! I do have some lovely customers/friends. I still find writing a weekly blog quite (what's the word?) strange. It is really weird to think how many people read it but the stats on my website show that they do, so I will keep going.