Virginia Cheeseman Blog

What a week of highs and lows, I am exhausted! I finally went up in a hot air balloon with my son but not on Sunday as planned. We arrived at the launch site, waited an hour and were then told it was too windy. We went back on Monday evening and it was lovely, I never thought it would happen. It was last year's birthday present and had been cancelled four times. The evening was beautiful, we flew over Henley and the surrounding areas. Some magnificent houses with swimming pools could be seen down below, I want one! Tuesday was not so great as I had to say farewell to my 19 year old cat. He was the love of my mum's life before she died and then we took him over, he was the friendliest cat ever. I am missing him so much, he was always at my side. My mother in-law moves into her flat tomorrow, my hubby and I have spent every spare moment this last week getting things ready. We were there until late last night putting up curtain rails, curtains, cleaning etc and I have to be back...

First some very sad news, unfortunately my Blue Tit family in the camera nest box are no more. Two of the babies died, leaving three healthy babies but I soon realised from watching on my computer screen, that the mum and dad were nowhere to be seen. I think the mum had died, the dad was trying to cope alone and the babies starved. I rang St Tiggywinkles wild animal hospital and they told me how and what to feed the babies. It was a job climbing up and removing the chicks without falling off the ladder (and into the pond below) but I managed and after I had fed the chicks I took them up to St Tiggywinkles hospital. I would love to have cared for them but it wasn't just the feeding, the chicks were two weeks old and almost ready to fly, they needed their parents to teach them how. At the wildlife hospital they have the facilities to house them properly until they can be released. I was worried that I would end up releasing them straight into one of my cats! The bugs have fared muc...

Well I survived the week without my IT support (husband). Thankfully I didn't have any problems with the computer and he will be back tomorrow. It's been a very busy week. I had a lot of new spiders come in on Monday, from a breeder in Europe and I have ordered yet more spiders for next week. They should arrive mid week and there will be several different species. I also had some mantids arrive in the post and one of my egg cases hatched yesterday. The Orchid mantids are quite small but already they look beautiful with their pale pink and white, petal shaped body and legs. They are happily devouring crickets up to half their body size. I have certainly spent a fair amount of time housing and feeding all my bugs this week (yes, even more than usual). It's a lovely time of year, everything seems to be having babies. I noticed that one of my Giant Crab spiders is running around with an egg sac today and yesterday I saw that one of my Cameroon Baboon tarantulas has laid an eg...

Summer at last, June is here and all the flowers and animals are in their prime. My garden is full of pretty flowers (and not so pretty weeds) and the Blue Tit eggs in our camera nesting box have hatched. It is just amazing watching them on my computer screen. I'm so glad I bought it for my 'hubby's' birthday! Sadly they started to hatch last Sunday, the day after my open afternoon but to be honest I wouldn't have had time to pop indoors and show anybody anyway. The open afternoon was a great success I think. I hope those of you that came thought so too. It was busy but not too busy that I couldn't cope. I was really worried that people might all turn up at once and have nowhere to go, let's face it my bug house is only a large shed. I have already put a new date for the next one on my website, it is Saturday 20 th June. I am not expecting this one to be as busy so I have gone back to my original time of 1pm-3pm. Most people arrived between 1-2pm and nobody ...