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I've only just realised that it's Friday 13th!

I've only just realised that it's Friday 13th! So far this week has been good, nice and busy. I hate to admit it but I am going away next Saturday for a week. Yes, it is another competition win and a special one at that. It is a week's cruise on a clipper ship, around the Mediterranean, visiting Corsica, Sardinia, Italy, Monaco, beginning and ending in Southern France. Food and flights are included, it sounds amazing but it really is the worst time to be going away. I don't want to sound ungrateful but I wish it had been in the school summer holidays! It's such a busy time now, I will be missing three close family birthdays, our daughter's first A level exam and last but not least the BTS show for the second year running. I missed it last year as it was on my daughter's 18th birthday. Other than that I haven't missed it in the last twenty odd years! Bad timing but I'm sure it will be super and we could do with a break after my husband's recent accident.

The bugs are thriving in the continued sunny weather. I have never had so many baby Hissing cockroaches. They are literally everywhere in the bug house but I am trying to get them all back in the tank! I brought in some lovely bush crickets, Leaf insects and unusual stick insects yesterday and some new scorpions earlier in the week. There certainly is a lot of new stock around. I am constantly being offered things but have to be careful as there is only so much that one person can do. I feel guilty leaving my daughter to care for everything while we are away, I just hope she copes ok. Teddi is still a boisterous puppy, she is almost 6 months now.

Life in the bug house has been eventful this week. The sunshine seems to bring everything to life. I have had several spiders leap out of their boxes at feeding time and they take ages to recapture as they run up the walls and hide under the shelving. I'm not usually freaked out by spiders (arachnophobia would be a problem in my job) but a couple of days ago the adult male Peruvian Orange Rump spider leapt from his box and set off across the table. He is the most revolting spider ever, I'm sorry I doubt I will ever sell him now but he has such long legs and seems to wave them all at the same time. He continually rubbed irritating hairs from his abdomen and looked really horrid! I have to say this is possibly my least favourite tarantula of all time, they have such a strange way of walking, even the juveniles look threatening. Perhaps it just me, I haven't seen one rear up and try and bite, they just give me the creeps. I took my mother in-law to the doctors recently and saw a huge house spider hiding in a corner. I quickly picked it up and put it out the front door. If my mother in-law had seen it she might have had a heart attack on top of her bad hip. She is very arachnophobic, she won't touch the garden in case she encounters a spider. I was watching the 'Essex Jungle' the other evening and they were helping people overcome their phobias of snakes and spiders. Could this be a way for me to boost my business? I could perhaps run short courses? Better start practicing on my mother in-law!

Lastly, I was so excited yesterday to discover that one of my Giant Flat Rock scorpions has got babies on her back. There are loads of babies and as I said last week I think this species is stunning (I still haven't sold any but perhaps that's just as well). Last night I was watching the Great Tits in our nesting box (the box has a camera so I can see them on my computer screen) and the seven eggs had started to hatch. I could clearly see 5 eggs and 2 little chicks. I can't see much this morning as the mum is sitting on them. It's so exciting x

I won't have time to write a blog next Friday as we leave early on the Saturday and will be busy packing (it is also my sister's birthday so I must see her, I'm missing enough birthdays the following week). I will be posting this coming week so please place your orders NOW. I said last month that I wasn't going to give any warning when I am going away as people seem to stop ordering. I really need to get things off before I go, I will be very busy when I get back and there is another ?@!(* bank holiday on the Monday after I return.


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