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I have a plan

I have a plan, the plan is to stop buying all these bugs and get on with selling them! I have seriously gone a bit mad lately and I am now spending hours every day just caring for my 'mini zoo'. I am beginning to panic about our family holiday in August, my mother in-law is great at house sitting and the 'normal' pets but she is totally phobic about bugs. My daughter insists that she will find me someone to help. I hope so, the only criteria is to live locally and be 100% reliable. I don't need a bug enthusiast, just someone who can follow instructions.

So - this week I have received some amazing spiders from Indonesia, Jumping spiders, Orb Web spiders and Barking Birdeaters. I have received a selection of captive bred baby scorpions and some magnificent large beetles. I did feel a twit carrying a huge log back from the woods past a whole group of workman but I'm hoping to get the beetles breeding and they need rotten wood. I'm not sure if the log is rotten enough, it weighed a ton (almost). Cutting it into smaller chunks to fit in the boxes is on my list of jobs for hubby this weekend. He has been away on his annual motorbike trip for the week and only got back yesterday. His list is pretty long, my website is lacking so many photos and I have no idea how to do that bit. He really is my IT support, I did quite well while he was away but I did muck up the Welcome page and a few other bits and pieces. He says he's going to charge me for the support phone calls while he was away! A week whizzing around Europe on a motorbike, doing hundreds of miles a day doesn't sound like fun to me but I suppose my work would sound like torture to a lot of people and yet I love it!

The spa in Mayfair was so luxurious last Friday, it was a beautiful sunny day and we certainly enjoyed a taste of how the other half live. I love my competitions and had some brilliant wins last year. This year wins have been a bit thin on the ground, tickets, t-shirts, little Pepperami men that shout football slogans, have been about it. I have always been a dreamer and you never know what is just around the corner. I have had some super wins over the years, someone in my competitions group has just won £30,000. I also love going in the gym, I try and go three times a week, I find it strangely relaxing, it's about the only time I switch off mentally.

Some guys from the new Butterfly World in St Albans came to visit this week. I went to see them a few weeks ago and they wanted to see how I keep my animals. My goodness it was hard trying to clear up the bug house with so many new arrivals. I have boxes and tubs everywhere, I have almost run out of containers and I am looking at getting some more shelving units soon. I thought the visit went well. If anyone wants a leaflet about the butterfly exhibition just send me an SAE, it is a wonderful place. I will be going back to visit them soon.

Some of you may have noticed that I keep switching the crickets on and off in the live food section. I need to get organised with the crickets. I spend a fortune buying them in and I could really do with selling some out but I don't have a set day for ordering them, hence switching them on and off. I tend to put them on the site when I am ordering the boxes in for myself but once I have placed the order I need to take them off as I don't want anyone to order sizes that I haven't got. I am considering selling mini packs, many of my customers only have one or two spiders to feed and therefore don't need a whole tub. These tubs would be cheaper and I could then divide up any excess crickets that I have. Well it's an idea that I'm working on. I have lots of ideas but they are not always good ones.

That's it for another week, I could ramble on but the bugs are calling (well almost, I have several noisy cricket species at the moment, the ordinary brown and black crickets plus the Ethiopian crickets and my newly matured Florida Katydids).


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