A busy week

A busy week, I was determined to catch up on everything and I have worked continually to that aim. I have made a real impact on my paperwork and cleaned a lot of the large plastic boxes out. I am gradually switching over from the big plastic boxes that I have used for years to the smaller Wilko plastic boxes that are actually sold as CD boxes. They are long and slender and fit perfectly on my shelving in the bug room. They also come with a purple lid which is a bonus for a purple freak like me. The large boxes are just so heavy and cumbersome when full of soil, damps leaves and of course the millipedes, cockroaches, beetles and all manner of creepy crawlies that require a dense substrate.

Thankfully we just had a smattering of snow last week and although cold, it has been quite nice and bright here. I even managed to do a bit of gardening in my ‘jungle’ (wildlife garden). It is actually very sunny as I look out of my office window (yes, I am writing the blog a day early again). I will be taking my disabled mother in-law and sister out tomorrow and I have to walk Teddi before we set off so there will be no time to write the blog. I’m trying to speed up now as I need to collect my great nieces from school in 45 minutes. Never a dull moment. On that point! I collected my Apple watch from the store last Friday (you may recall it should have arrived on Thursday but was held up). It is brilliant but I really need to learn how to use it properly. Because almost everything I have is linked to Apple these days I have been able to work it without instruction a little but it is doing some very strange things. My hubby fell about laughing when the watch beeped and told me to breathe, I was not amused. It is something that my husband and others say to me when I start getting excited and prattling on nonstop, I don’t expect my watch to join in too! My daughter sent me a message a few days ago so I replied by speaking into my watch. I finished by saying kiss, kiss, which showed up as just that, in words, I now know I should say XX. Anyway, I could bore you all day, it’s great and a super Christmas present.

My January sale is still going strong, the more I can sell now the more room there will be for new stock next week. I think February is set to be a very busy month for me. I’m always moaning about lack of time but I would hate to be bored. I have lots of ideas in the pipeline as usual, some will get off the ground and others just don’t work out for one reason or another. I’m very glad that I have started giving people a little nudge and a small incentive to write a review on their purchases. It is going well, I will have a count up at the end of the month but I think I have received more reviews this month than ever before. I really appreciate people taking the time to write a review. I often read reviews before buying a product online so I think it is a very important feature on a website. I know I expect an awful lot from my website and I admit that I find the limitations extremely frustrating but an all singing, all dancing tailor made website is way out of my reach so I need to work with what I have got. I am very lucky to have my web guy Super Simon as I call him. He really is incredibly helpful but I don’t like to bother him more than I have to. A problem that has shown up with the reviews this month is that you can only review an item that is showing as for sale on my website. I sometimes only have one specimen (especially with tarantulas) so once the item has been bought it is automatically removed from the site. My quick fix is that I am putting the item back on for a few days after it has gone, at £500. This allows the person who has bought it the time to write a review without someone trying to buy an item that has sold (I don’t think anyone is going to pay £500 for anything on my website!). Hopefully my husband or Super Simon will come up with a better solution but it’s the only thing I can think of at the moment. I just need to remember to take the sold item off after a few days and adjust the price back to its original setting or the next time I have it in stock the £500 price tag will be showing again and I will wonder why nobody is buying it!

I am looking forward to February, my birthday is on the 3rd and our Ruby wedding anniversary is on the 12th so there will be lots to celebrate. We are planning to go on a super-duper holiday to Costa Rica, home of so many amazing animals, both big and small. Our son and daughter in-law may come with us which would be nice. Our daughter will of course have to stay here and look after all the animals. We are thinking of November/December, it is a good time of year to visit Costa Rica and quite frankly it is a lousy time for my business with few orders coming in. Some of you will know that I have been attempting to learn French on my iPad for the last couple of years. I do a little every day and I enjoy it so now I am also attempting to learn Spanish. It is a very long time since I was at school but I did learn some French and German there, however I have never leant any Spanish so it is quite strange. It’s early days but it actually seems a bit easier than French. I’m determined to give it a go as it is widely spoken in Costa Rica. A few years ago we went to Mexico for a week. We stayed in an Eco hotel and it was fantastic but everyone spoke Spanish and the staff spoke very little English. I just thought at the time how much easier it would be if I just had even a few words of the language. I need words like snake, spider, lizard, frog, beetle etc.

Anyway, I now have the girls, they are glued to the telly (we have all the kids Sky channels – I’m told) but I have promised them McDonalds for dinner so I had better get a move on. I’ve still got today’s emails to reply to and if I don’t start now it will be bed time! I’ve just realised that I never did put the little video on Facebook that I spoke about last week. I haven’t seen or heard this amazing giant cricket since. I will try and do that too before we get off.

This weeks photo: A beautiful Mexican Red Knee (Brachypelma smithi), the original pet tarantula and still the best pet spider ever! (in my opinion)