Nearly there, this time next week it will be Christmas day!
Nearly there, this time next week it
will be Christmas day! I would like to say a big thank you to all my customers
for your support throughout the year. I do try my best and I think most people
appreciate that. It has certainly been a difficult year sales wise and since
injuring my back and eye at the end of last year it has highlighted to me that
I need to cut down on the amount of creatures that I keep. With the best will
in the world my family have no interest and therefore no idea how to care for
my menagerie. I am rarely ill but if I were, there is simply no back up plan. I
think 2016 will see some significant changes to the way I work. If you are a
regular reader of my blog then you will know about my “Ginny’s Jungle” parties
idea. I will be setting it up in the new year but it will take time to organise
so I won’t be restocking on the scale that I usually do in January. I have no
intention of giving up my online shop (I have just spent a fortune on the
website upgrade and new computer), I just hope that the children’s parties will
run along side my regular business and ease the pressure a little.
I am thinking of posting orders on
Tuesday and Thursday next year, rather than Monday and Thursday as I do now.
The reason for this is that my family would really like me to stop working on
Sundays (especially my husband). At the moment I have to get the paperwork
sorted and the animals ready for despatch but if I were to post on Tuesdays I
could get this work done on Monday. I find I get lots of emails and phone
enquiries on a Monday as it is the first day of the week. The plan falls down
when I have any orders for outside the UK as I always feel it is best to post
these on Monday so that there is plenty of time to arrive before the weekend.
It seems that many European countries don’t deliver any post on a Saturday or Sunday.
I don’t send many parcels abroad so it may be that I just send those orders on
a Monday (but of course this entails getting all my packaging out and a trip to
the post office). Problems, problems, I am probably over thinking things as usual!
Talking of foreign orders, I sent a parcel to Finland on 7th December and it still hasn’t arrived! My poor customer and I have been chasing it up constantly and all Royal Mail were able to tell me was that it was lost as it hadn’t been scanned in anywhere after Heathrow airport! Finally, it has appeared on the radar this morning and is showing as out for delivery so fingers crossed that everything is ok, I think it will be. I’m always saying that “parcels are usually kept where people are working and people don’t like to get cold”. It looks like the parcel has been sitting in an office in the UK for the last week and a half. I certainly won’t be sending any parcels outside of the UK in December next year. I haven’t had this before but I certainly don’t want to risk it again.
My last day for sending orders before Christmas will be Monday. It is already looking like a busy day. Apart from the incident with the Finnish parcel, Royal Mail have been doing very well this December, I haven’t had a single parcel delayed. The mild weather may have helped, it is incredibly mild here and long may it last, I really hate the cold, and snow may be pretty but I’m happy to just see it on the telly. I will be having a break over Christmas but will obviously still be here looking after the general feeding, cleaning and maintenance of the animals. I have lots planned with the family and will have my son and daughter in-law’s cat as a house guest between Christmas and the new year as they are off skiing and I will probably be caring for my nephew’s cat too as they are off to his wife’s family for a few days. However hard I try I just can’t get away from looking after animals! Hopefully I won’t find any runaway turkeys this year, everyone still laughs at me for rescuing that turkey a couple of years ago. What was I supposed to do it was wandering around the road?
Merry Christmas to you all, your family
and pets xxx