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Sunny Cyprus was bliss

My week in sunny Cyprus was bliss. I am actually writing this blog using my iPad, on the aeroplane because I know just how busy I am going to be when I get back home! Everything will need feeding and there will be a mountain of emails to reply to and phone calls to make and then there's the people in my life (who I love dearly, but...), must take mum in-law shopping/to collect new hearing aids and collect nephews kids from school tomorrow. Need to shop for birthday presents (missed 5 close family birthdays in the week I was away), big family barbecue on Saturday to catch up with everyone. I would love to show off my suntan but suspect it will be an indoor party, wearing jeans and jumper ( according to son's view of the weather). My wonderful (but pretty useless) daughter has been holding the fort, spraying the bugs, morning and night, feeding the Hissing cockroaches every day (I have way too many, must sell some), replacing bramble when necessary and topping up water jars. I 'think' she has done ok. If you have been following me on Facebook you will know that she had a problem with one of the large Fishing spiders escaping. Her text actually read "should I try and catch it or will it kill me", another text said "Hissing cockroaches made a run for it when I opened the lid to feed them, spent an hour trying to get them back in".

Anyway the holiday was great and we had amazing fun bug hunting every day (not sure hubby sees it quite the same way). We didn't get to see any snakes despite spending hours looking. Only yesterday the gardener disturbed a Whip snake in the hotel grounds and the hotel owner came running in to fetch me from lunch. I was up like a shot but it had disappeared. We searched everywhere and even dismantled part of the wall but no sign of it anywhere. We did however find lots of praying mantids around the hotel gardens (see photos on Facebook). I haven't kept mantids for years but I really love them and to see them in the wild was a delight. I think the huge ones were a Sphodromantis species and I also found a rare Empusa fasciata. We saw beautiful, bright green tree frogs and very noisy larger frogs, lots of different lizards and there were plenty of pretty hornets and Hummingbird hawk moths flying around each day. I took my new bat detector on the holiday and had great fun with that in the evenings.

Well it is now Friday morning, my usual blog writing day. I had to abandon the blog as we hit turbulence on the flight and I am rather prone to travel sickness so couldn't keep typing when everything was going up and down. The bugs seem to have survived ok, I did moan at my daughter for leaving some of the stick insects with very little bramble but then I had to apologise yesterday as I realised just how much they were eating. I put fresh food in on Wednesday night and by yesterday lunch time it needed replacing again. I love Jungle Nymph stick insects but they are huge and clearly eat a lot! I have some new stick insects arriving today so they will be added to my website a little later. There really are a multitude of jobs to do in the bug room. The very day we left I noticed that my first baby Giant Florida Katydid had hatched. I was delighted as I have never managed to breed these before but also dismayed as to how I was going to set up the nymph and remaining eggs to look after themselves for a week. I shoved them in with my Little Log stick insects, they are just hatching too so I had raised the humidity. The little Katydid is still alive but no more eggs have hatched. I hope I haven't killed them off by getting them too damp (ever the pessimist).

I must speed up now and leave everything else until next week. I have to walk Teddi now and have arranged to meet others in the park. It wouldn't be the first Friday morning that I have been so engrossed in my blog that I have completely forgotten the 'doggy play date'. My website update is going ahead as scheduled next week. I know it needs doing but it fills me with dread, I just hope I can still work it ok and get to grips quickly with anything new. It will be far easier for customers to view and order on a phone or tablet. I certainly hope so for the price it's costing me!

I'm still working on that mountain of emails but I hope to be finished by this evening and I think I'm on track to get everything posted off on Monday. Hope everyone has a good weekend, mine will be busy but I'm not complaining after such a lovely week away.


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