It’s nearly Christmas, too near. I’m not ready but I’m sure it will be fine, it always is in the end, that’s what my husband says! I find Christmas a very stressful time, it may be the most wonderful time of the year for children but it’s pretty damn hard work for us women (sorry, sexist, not allowed these days but it’s my blog 😁). Retirement still seems quite new but I will soon be saying “I retired last year” and that sounds very weird to me.
How are the bug room renovations going? Hmm, what can I say? It looks like a project for 2026. When the bugs were in the room we had the windows covered with polystyrene, partly to insulate and partly to stop the sun shining onto my glass tanks. It turns out that two big window panes were broken (due to this summer’s heat no doubt) and the frames had rotted due to excessive moisture. My husband has been working hard to build new frames and get them fitted but it has taken weeks. I would love to have had my ‘chill out zone’ ready for Christmas but it is still in a state and instead of being able to hide out in there, I am now going to shove all our surplus ‘stuff’ in it. We have quite a few visitors coming over.
I’m always bah humbug before Christmas but the day will be truly amazing this year with our gorgeous grandsons and another on the way! (might be a girl?) I’m very lucky to have such a close family. We are all dining together on Christmas day at our son and daughter in-law’s house.
I am still trying to sort out over forty years of bug things and I can’t bear having to part with so much but it makes no sense to hang onto it. I cannot throw out the large number of miniature items that I bought for my social media photo shoots with the bugs (they are now in a large draw in the bedroom). I have however been deleting word documents, sorting out my accounts, clearing emails but I really wish I had kept my website going for another year. I thought I had all my customer records but most of the information disappeared when the site was switched off. Obviously, I have to keep all my financial records for the tax man, I think it is for the last five years (I was never going to get rich breeding bugs). I have managed to stay in touch with a number of my customers/friends, the Christmas cards are lovely, thank you and I am heartened that so many people are still reading my blog. I certainly don’t miss going to the post office but it seems the staff there miss me, I keep being asked why I haven’t been in. I popped in a few days ago with some Christmas gifts to post and people were queuing around the shop. I just turned around and went back the next day (I couldn’t do that when I was sending off the bugs). The post office area is very small and just this year it has become an Evri drop off/collection point. It was causing problems with my parcels before I retired, they have such a small amount of space and I didn’t want my parcels put on the floor. I’m sure the ladies behind the counter would have had a fit if they knew what was in my parcels, I’m imagining they wouldn’t like to know that they were handling cockroaches, tarantulas and scorpions so I never told them 😂 Perhaps I will do now but maybe ignorance is bliss. I only ever mentioned stick insects and beetles, I had to tell them about the crickets too when the box was making a racquet. I stopped selling the Egyptian crickets a few years ago as they actually sounded like a smoke alarm going off!
I keep thinking that if I had kept the website going then perhaps I could have done something else that didn’t involve posting my precious little bugs. I always hated putting my creatures in the post because I had no control once they were gone. I think, could I have got another of my great ideas off the ground? (always dreaming up great ideas that generally turn out to not be that great 🤣). I would like to have tried phobia workshops, I think I would be good at it but just like my Ginny’s Jungle business the ‘wonderful’ (poorly thought out 🤬) Animal Welfare license regulations would have made it impossible as it I would have needed to keep vertebrate animals as well as invertebrates. Oh well, I will keep dreaming, I still quite fancy being a life coach, I love talking, I’m a good listener, I’ve got an opinion on everything – how hard could it be? Perhaps in another life! I think I will just stick with family, wildlife and my garden, they keep me pretty busy.
Happy Christmas to you all and best wishes for the New Year 🎄🎅 🎁 🥂
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