I'm writing this a day early

I'm writing this a day early or I just won't get a chance again this week! Tomorrow the new outer door is being fitted in my bug room. This is the coldest, frostiest morning that we have had this winter. I doubt if it will be any better tomorrow so we are going to have fun and games trying to cover the doorway and keep the heat in. Thankfully my hubby is off work tomorrow, so he will be here to help. We are hoping to rig up sheets of bubble wrap (must go out in the shed and check I have enough left). I will have to move everything away from the door so it will be chaotic in my bug room. I will have lots of feeding to do tomorrow as this week's cricket delivery will be arriving today. Probably this afternoon sometime, our postal deliveries are dire here. We seem to get mail later and later in the day and delivered by anyone who is available. We see our own postman about once a week these days (nothing to do with Christmas, it's permanent). I often get emails quite early in the morning, just letting me know that things have arrived safe and well. I always think, those were the days when my post arrived at breakfast time, now it's closer to supper!

Last week was incredibly busy with lots of orders placed, November was much busier than it usually is. I think it may have been my best November ever? However this week it is December and Christmas is fast approaching. Orders have tailed off to a dribble but people are telling me they will order in a couple of weeks. The problem with this is that I may not be able to send out orders then. I will do my best but if it snows my village comes to a grinding halt. I've said it before, we are perched on a hill and cannot get up or down in the snow. I cannot stress enough 'now' is the time to buy your bugs for Christmas. Last year I had to stop posting far earlier than I intended as the weather was very bad. I am hoping that Thursday 19th will be my last day of posting for UK deliveries. It certainly won't be later because of the weekend and lack of postal deliveries (I remember the good old days of Sunday collections and even Sunday deliveries before Christmas). Wouldn't it be great if Royal Mail reinstated this now that it has been privatised. It would be much easier for me if I could post orders on Fridays. I almost always end up working on Sunday as I have to sort out orders and bugs to go off on Monday. Most of my orders come in between Thursday and Monday.

I have started sending out my Christmas cards with orders this week. I am quite pleased with them (don't get too excited). You may remember that I had to start again as my first attempt was awful, the picture was too dark and the bugs couldn't be properly seen. When the cards arrived they were - rubbish!

All the bugs seem to be fine and now that I have considerably less of them, it is much easier to manage everything. I have been selling off my oddments (spider with a leg missing, unidentified species etc) and it has gone really well. Up until now I have just tended to hold onto everything. I think I have finally learnt my lesson that I must not overload myself. There really is only so much that one person can do on their own. I will be restocking in January but I will be taking more care to stock the right animals in 2014. I constantly feel under enormous pressure caring for so many animals every day and it is a constant worry that if I were ever ill there is nobody to take over. If I have less animals then this worry is lessened a little. My daughter isn't scared of the bugs, as my hubby is so she 'may' be able to do it but goodness knows how long it would take her. My hubby works with TFL (Transport for London) so he has been working ridiculous hours over the last couple of weeks due to the spate of cyclists dying on London roads. He actually has three days off from tomorrow, whoopee! I have loads of jobs planned for him and Christmas shopping on Sunday (which he hates).

Last chapter in the saga of my baby Corn snakes. A customer of mine, who has more experience than me with snakes took the remainder, both the healthy babies and the ones that wouldn't feed unaided. I don't think the outlook for the weaker ones was good but I did my best. I did try to be really sensible and let them all go but I just had to keep two. I know I have too much to look after (people as well as animals but that's another story) but they are gorgeous and I really love snakes. I now have five pet Corn snakes but that's not too many is it? I love the snakes on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. I would be in my element with all those creepy crawlies, cute crabs, pretty rats etc. but I don't think I would ever have got in there as I cannot imagine jumping out of a helicopter!

Anyway I had better get a move on. Thursday is a short day for my work as I collect my nephew's three kids from school and have them for the evening (my husband is working until late tonight). Lots to get organised and cleared up for the door replacement in the morning.

My lovely web guy has been rushed off his feet lately and hasn't had time to finish my upgrade (should have been August) but I did plead with him this week and he has made some adjustments to the site that really needed doing. The Google search box has been removed as it was confusing people and the search box on the banner at the top now says 'search my site'. I know the site could be so much better but both my web guy and I are permanently busy so we will have to do bits at a time. I mentioned recently that the tarantula species need to be in one place, showing all the sizes available but it isn't going to happen anytime soon so the best way to find something is to put the name in the search box and if it is on my website it will show up. A lady this week had been trying to order some gift vouchers. I'm glad she contacted me because I didn't even know that gift vouchers were available. Well, it turns out they are not so I got my web guy to remove the link. If you do find any problems on my website please do let me know. I am always grateful as then I can sort them out.