Virginia Cheeseman Blog

A nice sunny day today, oh why couldn't it have been like this when we went to visit my mother in-law at the seaside on Wednesday. It poured the entire day and was very cold. It looks like the weather will be good for my open afternoon. It will be nice to see people but I am still a bit worried that it is only a log cabin and quite a few of you seem to be coming. Hopefully it will be a great success and I can have lots more! I seem to be overflowing with livestock at the moment, I have quite a few tarantulas coming in from Europe next week. I should be getting the following species, they will all be small but I'm not sure of prices until they arrive (Acanthoscuria brocklehursti, Avicularia huriana, Avicularia spec. Purple, Avicularia versicolor, Cyclosternum schmarde, Grammostola chalcothrix, Grammostola rosea, Nhandu chromatus, Nhandu collotaravillosum , Pamphobeteus spec, Tapinauchenius cupreus, Tapinauchenius purpureus, Tapinauchenius subcaeruleus, Cyriopagopus spec. Blue,...

I seem to have loads to say but no time to say it! I went to the British Tarantula annual show last weekend. It was very good as usual but I bought far too many new animals and consequently I am still trying to catch up with myself. The power was off yesterday as planned but the electricity board finished their 'essential maintenance' early and power was restored about 2pm, rather than 4pm. I then turned on the computer to umpteen emails. It isn't only work that has been busy this week it is a bumper week for birthdays in our family, my sister's on Wednesday, great niece's yesterday and daughter's 17th tomorrow. Back to the show - I need to speak French! There were several exhibitors from Europe and many from France. They had some great stock, especially spiders but we had a definite language barrier. I managed to get some Goliath Birdeating spiders (Theraphosa leblondi) but they were the most expensive spiderlings that I have ever bought. I'm sure if I sp...

I put the details of my 'open afternoon' on the website a few days ago. I have had several people from far and wide say that they are coming so I decided to extend the hours. The time is now 1pm - 4pm, rather than 1pm - 3pm. I hope it is a nice day. My wildlife garden is taking shape, we put the new pond in last weekend (well my lovely husband did) and I planted it up afterwards. The plants will take time to grow but it is certainly coming along. I have planted some nettles in a large flowerpot, it would be great to attract some butterflies but I don't want a garden full of nettles. I still haven't seen a single Small Tortoiseshell but there are plenty of Peacock butterflies around. They could be the ones that I reared and released last year? Next Thursday I will be without power for the day. The electricity board need to carry out essential maintenance work. Some of you may remember that this was supposed to happen in February when I was away. It caused absolute pani...

It's been an up and down week, Monday was another Bank Holiday (we went to the Grand Designs Show, very interesting). Tuesday was slow sales and enquiries wise but I had plenty to catch up on. I was supposed to go in a hot air balloon on Wednesday but yet again it was cancelled due to the weather (too windy). My son bought a voucher for my birthday last year, it is something that I have always wanted to do - I will have to re-book it again! Thursday was a manic day, loads of orders coming in and the phone didn't stop ringing. I'm always moaning about praying mantids taking up lots of time and not selling but recently I have found them selling really well. I'm delighted because I adore praying mantids, I love the way they turn around and look at you. My last two Green Shield mantids went off yesterday to be filmed for a BBC program. I reared them up from an egg case that I bought and I had hoped to breed them but unfortunately my female fell down on her last moult and en...

Pinch and a punch the first day of the month - I really used to like doing that when I was younger! (a lot younger) The sun is shinning, it's been a really busy week. I'm so pleased that my business seems to be doing ok in the current economic climate, I'm never going to get rich keeping bugs but keeping things ticking over is good! There is always the Euro lottery tonight, £89,000,000. I was just looking in our local paper and found my perfect house, 1.6 million pounds, picturesque with loads of grounds, beautiful conservatory for the plants, annex for all my animals - dreams, dreams. Anyway back to reality, I don't think BBC Music 6 have millions of listeners as they claim, not a single person has contacted me about my appearance on the George Lamb show last week. I bought a collection of spiders a few days ago, unfortunately it isn't that uncommon for people to be forced to give up their pets due to a change in circumstance. This young guy has to move and is ...