Virginia Cheeseman Blog

Lucky me! Spa last week and Cyprus this week. However, in between is extremely hard work getting everything ready to leave for 10 days (we usually go away for only a week). I posted off my last orders yesterday and because we don’t return until the Wednesday night I won’t be able to post any orders again until Monday 9th May. I have cleaned out lots of cages this week and fed everything up but I will be going through it all again tomorrow before we set off Sunday morning. I will post photos on my Facebook page of anything interesting that I find while I’m away. I will of course be looking for snakes, it is my favourite holiday pastime, even if we very rarely ever see one, at least a live one as most are dead on the road. I have a Facebook friend of a friend in Cyprus who is interested in wildlife photography and says he can take me out to look for snakes. He has posted photos of the Blunt Nosed viper recently as they have been emerging from hibernation. Having read how venomous they ar...

I’m off on a two-day spa break with my daughter so no time to write the blog today. I still have to walk Teddi (in the rain) but then we are on our way. It was a Christmas present from my son and daughter in-law (it has taken us until now to organise it!). The bugs are doing well, no problems, it’s a busy time of year. Can’t wait for a bit of rest and relaxation.

A cold and wet start to Spring here. I can’t wait for our trip to Cyprus in a couple of weeks, I’m really busy preparing everything. We are going for 10 days rather than the usual 6-7 days. Although my daughter and friend will be here looking after things I don’t let anyone else touch the spiders and scorpions so they will all need to be set up to look after themselves before I go. Hence my major tarantula sale! Things are going well but I still have many more than I would like, if you see a spider that you want but it is too expensive please do ask if I can reduce it. I certainly will if I can. I am doing my best to improve the information on my website and I do feel that it is getting better and better. My poor web guy Simon has a lot to put up with, I seem to be constantly on the phone to him. I have a list of about five questions to put to him today. He always answers the phone with “Hi Virginia” in a cheery voice, I’d hate to know what he really thinks, probably “oh no, it’s her a...

Spring at last! The bramble is beginning to grow again (very important if you keep stick insects), the birds are visiting my camera nesting box (on a tree in front of my window, linked to a screen in my office) and the pond in the garden is full of frogspawn. All wonderful but I’m still waiting for the good weather, I think Easter was a wash out for most of us and there was a frost here this morning. The bugs are doing well and as I am going on holiday to Cyprus in three week’s time, I am once again looking to cut back on stock, especially tarantulas. I have way too many as you may have noticed by reading my ‘pink information box’. I am inviting people to “make me an offer” and this seems to be going well. Sadly, the open afternoon last Saturday didn’t go quite so well and although I had a nice chat with some local ‘spider people’ I didn’t sell a single thing (I would now choose a sad Emoji to put here but I tried to use them in my blog last time and they didn’t appear). I will have to...