Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! The master plan is going well, I just need to stick to it. My work is ever changing, as is life. I’m not a fan of change but I need to continue streamlining my business in order to keep it going. I only have just over a year until I receive a pension but I don’t want to retire, I intend to just cut things down a bit.

My wonderful daughter (second in command with the bugs) is expecting her first baby next month and I’m thinking I will be very much on Nanna duties. I therefore can’t go along to the SEAS exhibition at the end of the month and restock for the entire year as I generally do J However, I will be going along and buying from my specific shopping list (the now famous clip board). Hopefully the baby won’t be early but just in case I have booked a room at the hotel that I can cancel without losing my money. I love the SEAS show, great venue, great organisers, great socializing and hopefully some amazing creatures too!

I’m really concentrating on breeding what I have and am delighted that my home-grown Whip scorpions are now pregnant with their own babies (a bit like my daughter). I have several beautiful tarantulas that I am holding back for potential breeding and concentrating on arachnids certainly seems the way for me to move forward. It does seem odd that I no longer have any stick insects or praying mantis but it was absolutely the right thing to do. Just this week I have reduced all my non-tarantula spiders as it became apparent that true spiders, truly don’t sell! Some of them are beautiful but I am constantly feeding and caring for them, when bluntly from a business point of view, they don’t warrant it. I posted off my beautiful adult female Giant Fishing spider yesterday and I practically had to give her away. The Jumping spiders that are currently popular do sell but they are a lot of work. I expect to get some more but only when I have a bit more time to care for them.

Here come the moans (I wouldn’t be me without them). I again got Covid for Christmas, it has become an annual event! I have had Covid three times and each bout has been around Christmas time. This year it was just before the big day and last year I tested positive on Christmas day itself! (I had already started cooking so it was turkey for lonely hubby and I all week and I don’t even like turkey).

A week before Christmas this year my all singing, all dancing Dyson heater broke down. I rely on my Dyson to heat and filter the air in the bug room so I was very upset. We sent it off for repair and I wasn’t expecting the reply that we got back. It cost hundreds of pounds and was only three years old but we were told that it was unrepairable. I am now expecting a new one to be delivered today, technology moves on so we needed to choose a new model. I was very excited when I saw one that also cools the room and humidifies it. Brilliant for hot summers and my bug room gets way too dry when the heating comes on. Sadly, my excitement was short lived as the machine didn’t actually heat, just cooled and humidified. I have now gone for the one that heats and cools, I certainly can’t afford two of these machines, they are extortionate! We did get a deal but it was still hundreds, huge bills just after Christmas are never welcome.

All in all, I’m looking forward to the year ahead, daughter’s baby in February, son’s wedding in May and as it’s a big birthday for me this year a ‘possible’ return to Costa Rica at the end of the year. My absolute favourite place on the planet! It used to be Richmond park but I’m aiming a bit higher these days. I do still love Richmond park though, it’s my happy place!