A very unwelcome bug laid me low last week, I was unable to write my blog and unable to move much at all for a couple of days. I'm assuming I had the norovirus, several newspapers have mentioned how prevalent it is at the moment. My daughter also had it but not as bad as me! It really put me behind with everything as I had already had a rare day off on Wednesday and then woke up ill on the Thursday. I am still chasing my tail to try and catch up. I know I shouldn't moan but bank holidays really muck up my system, it is a bank holiday today and then again on Monday. This means that I cannot send out any orders until Tuesday. I will be working over the Easter weekend to catch up on paperwork and bug feeding/cleaning duties (not phone calls). I need to get straight as I will be away next weekend. I am actually off to a health spa, it was a Christmas present from my husband and I am certainly looking forward to it. I will be going with my daughter, sister and nieces so it will be a lovely girly trip.
The animals have faired better than me lately. Spring is in the air and everything is breeding (well it is cold and wet but at least we don't have any snow here). I was really pleased to see that one of my huge Wandering spiders is carrying around an egg sac. I was sorting through my Banded millipedes and discovered several babies a few days ago. A number of people have emailed over the last couple of weeks offering me stock that they have successfully bred. This is great to hear as I don't want to deal in wild caught stock unless I have to. I have some pretty Jumping spiders and some Dead Leaf mantids coming in next week and the following week I expect to have lots of new spiders and hopefully some bigger ones. I did get in new spiderlings of several species last week, thankfully they arrived before I went down with the lurgy. I have kept a few of the Giant Pancake slugs, they were selling like hot cakes but I think they are so cute that I couldn't part with them all. I would really like to breed these myself. I saw a photograph of some amazing Moon moths yesterday and I was tempted to buy some eggs. It is years since I kept any exotic moths but I do love them. The advert said that the larvae feed on pine, I looked out of my office window at my husband's Bonsai trees, several of which are pine but then I thought no, he would kill me!
I do spend a great deal of time on paper work, I get a large number of emails every day. I have no problem at all with being asked relevant questions but I frequently get asked the same few questions that are answered on my FAQ page. I hate ignoring emails so I think it is about time I wrote a 'tactful' note and then I can send it to anyone asking these basic things. I don't get that many phone calls these days but I am quite happy to answer questions this way, I think it is often easier. I generally have my mobile attached to my belt so it is unlikely that I will miss a call. I do wish my mobile phone had an engaged signal because it just rings and then goes onto the answer machine, when I am actually speaking on it (yes, I know it beeps in my ear but I wouldn't have a clue how to answer another call and put the person on hold - I would probably just cut everyone off). Another problem that I am looking at is the number of people who order from my site and choose to send a cheque or postal order. These people very rarely send the money and then I have to cancel the order and put all the stock back on the site. This takes time and also stops these items being sold to serious customers. If the problem continues at this rate, I may have to consider removing the option of paying by cheque or postal order.
Happy Easter Everyone
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