April Fool's Day but this kitchen is no joke

April Fool's Day but this kitchen is no joke. The kitchen fitter will be finished today but there is so much more to do, decorating, tiling, skirting boards, doors, the list goes on. Working with all this around me and a puppy in tow has been unbelievably stressful. No more major building work for me, anything else that needs doing on this house will either be done by my hubby or not done at all! It's been a busy week all round. I have bought in several new spiders, some a good size and some ridiculously small dots. I must start asking people for body length when I am getting in new spiders. Leg length generally means nothing at all, I call it 'the squashed with a hammer measurement' as I'm sure that's the only way the spider would ever attain that leg span. I was reading on Google only yesterday about the Barking Birdeater spiders, their leg span is stated to be up to 20cm but the body length is approximately 6cm. How on earth could a spider with a 6cm body length have legs that reach out to 20cm? (unless it was squashed flat and stretched apart maybe). A body length of 6cm is a good size tarantula but it doesn't sound half as impressive as 'this spider measures 20cm'.

My hubby did put the photos on last week's blog for me. There is one of Teddi, thoroughly enjoying shredding newspaper and kitchen roll in the bug house. I don't need an electric shredder when I've got her around. She is still only four months and gets very bored stuck in the bug house with me. The other photo is of a Horse-head grasshopper laying her eggs deep in the ground, they just look so comical and have such cute faces. I'm not sure how long the eggs take to hatch, I must check with 'my friend' Google today. I am rather worried that the small nymphs will be able to escape from the Exo-Terre tank when they hatch. I will have to think about that one.

Royal Mail are yet again putting up the postage on Monday. It is quite a leap for Special Delivery, I cannot believe quite how much postage has gone up in the last few years. I hate the idea of putting up my postal rates, I intend to keep the rate at £8.00 for now but I cannot see how I will be able to keep it at that rate when it comes to next winter. Postage is far more expensive for me when the weather is cold, as I need to use heat packs and larger boxes with more insulation, which means the boxes are heavier and therefore cost more to send. Quite a number of orders weigh over 1kg and the postage alone will be £9.00 from Monday, that's without the price of the heat pack, box and packing materials. I have bought a couple of boxes of parcel tape this week, they should keep me going for a while but each roll is now costing far more and I get through several rolls a week. I also bought address stickers this week, it was a repeat of the exact items that I ordered last year and they cost almost £8.00 more!

It is certainly Spring now, new leaves are appearing on the Bramble and Privet, which is great for me and the stick insects. I have lots of baby Hissing cockroaches emerging. Sadly one of my Vietnam Earth Tiger spiders ate her eggs. I can only assume she ate them because when I checked on her they had disappeared. I had hoped that they had hatched and the babies were hiding somewhere but I took the tank apart and found absolutely nothing, a real shame. Lots of people have asked about Praying Mantids this week but I just don't think I will be stocking them anytime soon. The problem with me keeping them is that they just can't be left. It is such a problem when I am not here as they get too dry in the bug house and spraying them directly can cause them to die too. You can't really win when keeping more than a few mantids but they are lovely bugs. I am going away for a long weekend next week so I won't be around from Thursday - Sunday and then unfortunately we have a family funeral to attend on the Monday. This means that I will only be posting out orders from Monday - Wednesday next week so please get your orders in early. I hope to post a few items off on the following Monday but the funeral is some distance away so it may not be possible. Yes, it is another competition win but don't I deserve it after all this kitchen torment! We are off to an Oxfordshire hotel and on the Thursday we will be taking part in a 'Hawk Walk', learning about and perhaps even flying birds of prey. I do love my competitions, we get to do such interesting things that we would probably never do unless I had won it.

I will again be buying in plenty of new stock after our trip, so do keep checking my website. I really need to get some more centipedes and scorpions. There won't be a blog next week but I will update everything the week after. I may be a little saner by then but don't bank on it. I sometimes get a glimpse of the fact that I am perhaps a little odd. When my husband came in from work yesterday I heard him shout to our daughter 'where's mum?', she replied 'upstairs bathing the snakes' and then there was silence. I had to giggle because it is clearly quite normal in our house but I couldn't help thinking how odd that would sound in your average home!