Virginia Cheeseman Blog

Christmas is less than a month away and I have so much to do before then. We erected the new shelving in my bug house on Tuesday. It was a difficult and long job as everything had to be moved off the original shelving and those of you who have visited me will know that the bug house isn't that big. It was too cold to put anything outside so it was a bit of a squeeze. I really don't like change, the new shelves are too high and too deep but I'm sure I will get used to them. At least the back wall won't cave in now. With the old shelving attached to the wall and the weight it was holding I was seriously worried. The shelving creaked loudly when I put anything on or took anything off. Wednesday we helped our son and partner move house, you would have thought that with all the money he earns he could have paid a removal firm rather than rely on his old mum and dad (well not that old). Then yesterday I had a very large number of spiders come in from my friend in Europe. I w...

What a busy week. I have been sending out orders each day and receiving new stock on an almost daily basis. I have ordered new shelving units for my bug house because the current shelving is attached to the walls and I am terrified that the weight is going to cause the building to collapse soon. The new shelves are free standing and industrial strength. Unfortunately there was a mistake with the order and not all the shelving units have been sent out. The mistake turned out to be a problem with the website that we bought from but I didn't find that out until after I had torn a strip off my husband for ordering the wrong thing (oops, I have made several grovelling apologies since). Everything is going very well in the bug house, I have been mating mantids and spiders since my return last week and I have several spiders with egg sacs from previous matings. I am not sure why but my Chile Beauty tarantula decided to abandon her egg sac, I left it for a couple of days but then I thou...

I'm back! The cruise was lovely, very relaxing. We sailed from Southampton to the Caribbean, we had 8 days at sea and six days visiting islands before we flew back from Barbados. It was a lovely competition win but I don't think we are cruising people, I did feel a bit stir crazy at times when I couldn't walk off and look at the animals and plants like I usually do on holiday. Once we hit land we had lots of trips booked so that we could explore. The St Lucia, rainforest 'aerial tram' was amazing, we were in a cable car high above the forest and our guide was superb. We then had an 'optional' twenty minute walk in the rainforest. Most of our party went back to the coach but I was off on a mission. There were some lovely caterpillars, butterflies, lizards, humming birds but even in St Lucia the 'health & safety' brigade have been out. Our guide said he'd love to show me more but we had to stay on the path. St Maarten was my favourite island, ...