August already

August already, Autumn is approaching (what a horrible thought). I love this hot weather, as do my animals, long may it last!

It's been a good week, I'm finally getting back on top of things after my holiday. I have rearranged some of the shelves and cleaned out some of the larger cages and boxes. I did have Tuesday off to go down to Somerset to visit my aunty for her 93rd birthday. It was a very long way to go there and back in a day but it was lovely, my aunty still lives in her own home and manages really well. I'm glad I put a note on the website as Tuesday turned out to be a really busy day (typical) but most people had read the note and realised I was unavailable. I soon caught up on all the emails, calls and questions the next day. I'm not sure if there was a fault with my website last weekend as I didn't receive a single order? I contacted my web guy and he said it looked fine but it was most odd considering this week has been so busy. If you tried to order and had a problem last weekend I would really like to hear from you. Perhaps everyone was just out in the sunshine. This weekend is not looking so good. Yet again my hubby is working all weekend so I will probably do the same (that's the trouble when you work from home, there is no escape unless I go out).

I bought in some new stock this week, Giant Train millipedes (huge ones as I picked them out myself), I am desperate to get these breeding but I don't seem to have discovered the knack just yet. I was told this week that they only breed once a year and that it is due to weather conditions, that may be why I have had little luck with them. I'm not giving up though, I have cracked it with several hard to breed species recently. I also bought in some new scorpions, Jungle Nymph stick insects (one of my favourite pet bugs) and tarantulas. Even better, I managed to sell a job lot of Sunny stick insects, Black Beauty stick insects and my home grown spiderlings. Why is it that quite often when I vastly reduce the price of a spider it seems to stop selling? Do people think there is something wrong with them? Surely it is obvious, I just have too many!

It is strange to think that I am off on holiday again in just a month. I generally have one holiday a year but having won the cruise, I certainly wasn't going to turn it down. I was glad yesterday to discover that we will not be spending two days in Israel as planned. Thankfully the itinerary has changed, I wasn't too keen anyway (doesn't sound like a great place for bug hunting and I'm not into history or religion) but now with the troubles I really wouldn't want to go there at the moment. Leaving my animals is very difficult so I am once again trying to cut down on stock and sell off the most time consuming and delicate creatures. At least my daughter won't have had time to forget what to do and I have modified some of my instructions e.g. the stick insects need fresh food every other day, the leaves are not just food, they keep up the humidity in the cage.

I never did find the time for the photo shoot last Friday. I desperately need to get some new birthday cards printed. The girls were all ready and we had the ideas mapped out but we forgot to buy the cupcakes that we needed and Izzy's (age 5) attempts to create them out of play dough were cute and inventive but not quite clear enough for the photos. I haven't got my nephew's kids as much as I thought these holidays but we will all be out at Chessington World of Adventures next Friday (hopefully it won't rain but if it does there will be less people visiting - that's what I have told the kids). I'm still busy as usual with everyone, taking mum in-law for a hospital check up on Monday (at least it is in the afternoon, Monday is always my busiest day).

I cut a piece out of the newspaper this week, the headline was "Insect population is down by 45%" but when I read the article it said that in the UK the number of beetles, butterflies, bees and wasps has fallen by up to 60%. In the world as a whole, over the last 35 years the invertebrate population has almost halved as the human population has doubled. Very sad indeed, clearly we have too many people on this planet but goodness knows how we solve that one (I've had some interesting discussions on the topic with various animal loving customers this week but I don't think I will put their suggestions in my blog!)

I am however doing my bit. The Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars that I rescued from a very unsuitable site have now pupated and once they hatch the girls and I will be releasing them back into the wild. My garden/jungle is alive with butterflies, bees and bugs, the ponds are full of dragonfly nymphs. I'm glad that my daughter is still going strong with her boyfriend as he did a great job of watering all the plants while we were in Cyprus. He certainly has the job again when we are on the cruise. Our daughter says that if he refuses he will have to help with the animals and he is terrified of the bugs and especially the snakes and spiders.

Better get showered, dressed and take Teddi for a walk. One of the advantages of working from home is that nobody sees me working away in my office. We will probably all be on camera soon, then I will be in trouble!