Virginia Cheeseman Blog

Sunshine at last this morning. What a miserable week it has been, rain and more rain. I am going to a wedding tomorrow so I really hope the sun continues to shine. It has been a busy week with lots of new stock arriving. I really must slow things down a bit soon, the school holidays are always a quieter time so it wouldn't be a good idea to keep buying in, I need to sell some out! With this in mind, I have decided to have a 'Spider Open Day' next Saturday. I am restricting the open day to spiders because I won't have the prices easily to hand for everything else (but if I'm asked in advance I can get other things sorted out). I really hope people will turn up, I have a plan this time (which I am rather worried will backfire on me), I am charging a £10 fee in advance (I would rather have charged £5 but the site is set with a minimum spend of £10). This fee is totally refundable upon any spider purchase on the day but I hope it will stop people messing me about. I am ...

Technology is great when it works! Firstly on Wednesday morning, I discovered that my website was down, this was fixed in a reasonable time by my website guy but then I went out for a couple of hours and came back to find no internet connection at all. This was a completely separate issue. Our internet provider had accidently deleted us from their records in an admin shuffle. It was a complete nightmare, we had no internet or email and I therefore had no way of getting onto my website or contacting my customers. My hubby had a day off and spent it trying to sort things out, initially we had been told that it may be a fault with our equipment. He was asked to reset our router, this took hours, not helped by the fact that we couldn't find our access codes or be sure of the password (so many to remember). We were finally reconnected on Thursday and I have been trying to catch up ever since. At the beginning of the week I was panicking about the second box of large tarantulas that I wa...

Where to start? What a busy time. My husband has been away all week, only returning yesterday so I have had 'everything' to do, work, home, running family around etc. Yesterday was eventful, my website went down in the morning, there was a major problem with the server. Thankfully I had already sorted out the orders and invoices for posting. I always send out the despatched notices from my site before taking the parcels to the post office (I like to check all the addresses match up, can you imagine sending bugs and spiders to the wrong address? I can, it's the stuff of my nightmares). Yesterday I didn't realise that the problem was only partly fixed, when I looked later, the orders had returned to processing mode so I had to start again. Thankfully the guy who looks after my site is brilliant, I had only told him this the day before and then look what happens! Actually I had a long conversation with him about using my site to better advantage. The site is capable of so...

A lovely life, cruising on the ocean. We had a super week, cruising around the Mediterranean, visiting Sardinia, Corsica, Italy, Monaco and Southern France. As a lot of you will know this is my second prize winning cruise, it was very different from the first where there were 3,500 guests, this clipper ship (with masts and sails) had only 130 guests and was therefore far more intimate and friendly. I think someone is trying to tell me something! I feel that for me cruises are 'enforced' relaxation. There are no animals and plants to care for and I therefore have no responsibilities and can truly relax. Back in my real life everything depends on me and I feel the pressure way too much. I wouldn't choose a cruise holiday but I'm sure they are good for me. I love boats and the feeling of freedom aboard them is amazing. The yachts in Monaco harbour were to die for. One was called "Awesome" and it certainly lived up to it's name! Now back to reality, this week...