Virginia Cheeseman Blog

I'm starting this blog a day early as tomorrow (Friday) is my husband's birthday and he has a day off work. I can't possibly have the whole day off as I am going up to London on Saturday (without hubby) but I feel I need to give him a little bit of time. Let's face it my menagerie takes up almost all my time right now. It's been a very busy week, I'm sure my bug room is shrinking! I seriously can't find room for everything, I have so many new animals and my own collection keeps expanding as everything starts reproducing in the Spring. It's lovely but a bit hectic. My two male snakes have gone off to their new home which is very sad. People are always asking why I don't do reptiles if I love them so much but that is the problem, I love them too much and would find it a wrench to part with them. I know it is sensible to just keep my four snakes but I am already missing my boys. I need more tanks with lids in my bug room but there needs to be enoug...

First Day Of Spring! Well officially I'm told it is but looking out of the office window it could be mid-Winter. The sky is completely grey, I have my camera poised but I can't imagine we are going to see anything of the eclipse. If you are further north hopefully you will see it, I was looking forward to viewing the eclipse (oh dear I am moaning again). I have loads to say this week, it has been so busy but as ever time is limited and even more so today as the spiders that I had coming from Europe didn't arrive until 4pm yesterday. I always collect my nephew's kids from school on Thursday afternoons and we do things together until they are collected in the evening. Well all we got to do yesterday was 'pot up' spiderlings. We worked tirelessly and when hubby came in he took over dinner making duties but still I couldn't get all the spiders sorted. I will get back to it as soon as I finish the blog! Thankfully the spiders were brilliantly packed and all ...

Spider Woman! That's who I am this week and where I seem to be going. I have been saying for some time that the bug business has changed and that I need to change too. Once I spent hours making net butterfly cages (I had a room in my house especially set up for it)but the market diminished as cheap imports arrived and I moved on, once upon a time I spent months of the year visiting schools with my 'mini-beast' shows (it was always seasonal) but then my daughter came along and I concentrated more on selling bugs through the post and having open afternoons at my house. This progressed into an online shop, firstly set up by my husband and then taken over and revamped by my current website builder. I now sell a huge range of bugs (which I love) but the time and effort involved with so many different creatures is not always that practical and certainly not financially rewarding. There is only one of me, nobody in my 'real' world (friends and family)has the remotest int...

Gardens are springing into life, everything is beginning to grow again and in the bug room all my little animals seem to be flourishing and reproducing. I am trying to organise my week better, I really need to now that my husband has changed jobs. He used to work most weekends but now he works weekdays only so it isn't fair on the family that I just carry on working all weekend. Friday has always been my 'floating' day when I go out and about running errands as there is no posting to do but it is now the day when I need to ensure that all the animals have been fed and cared for or else I have no choice but to carry on tomorrow. Consequently I don't have a lot of time this morning for the blog (it doesn't help that I can only type with one finger!). I would like to have started this blog last night but I had to attend to a friend's 'minor' crisis in the form of head lice. Well I thought it was minor but she didn't and as 'the bug lady' it wa...