Virginia Cheeseman Blog

Sorry, off up north to visit relatives this weekend, next Friday is Good Friday so my blog will return the following week, Friday 6th April. Happy Easter everyone.

Spring has sprung, well it will be springing in just a few days. Bliss, I keep hearing talk of the “Beast from the east” returning but I just close my ears and carry on in my lovely warm bug room. It’s been an amazingly busy week but good fun. I actually had two Ginny’s Jungle events booked in one day this week, that’s a first. I have several bookings now and on top of that, orders are coming in thick and fast and just as things are going out, more animals are coming in. Thankfully my back is a great deal better ‘almost’ back to normal. I have received scorpions, tarantulas, millipedes, beetles and more this week. I have got a great collection of tropical millipedes now. I really hope to get some of them breeding, I had one species come in that I haven’t seen before (as I write this I haven’t yet had time to put them on the website). They are from the Cameroon and very nice. I have quite a few large species and several that I have not yet managed to breed. I am learning more and more a...

Snow-joke! Honestly after all the snow and disruption last week, this week has been a nightmare for another reason. Last Friday I injured my back in a new gym class and ended up in excruciating pain, the weekend was a medication and agony induced blur, after seeing my doctor on Monday she confirmed that my back was indeed in spasm (you’re not joking). I could not believe the timing of it as I cannot recall ever having such a back-log of orders. Monday and Tuesday were very tough days as I just had to get all the orders packed and sent out. My family were great, especially my daughter, I honestly couldn’t have done it without her. The physical pain was awful but any mental anguish was all down to me as I’m delighted to say that all my customers, without exception were patient and polite. Obviously, people wanted to know when their animals would be arriving but nobody was pushing me and I was really grateful for this. Believe me I am my toughest critic and I was certainly pushing myself!...

Horrible white stuff, oh how I hate snow! This whole week has been dominated by the weather. I said last week that I was incredibly busy and this week has been no different, other than I have not been able to send out orders. I posted a few orders on Monday and everything was fine, it was cold at that time but there was no snow here. Since Monday the snow has just kept coming and going, not enough snow to stop me getting out of the village but enough snow to worry that my customers may not receive their animals the next day. It is so difficult to assess how other parts of the country are doing, they may be clear or knee deep in ‘the horrible white stuff’ so I decided it just wasn’t worth the risk to the animals. Snow or no snow, it has certainly been cold, cold, cold. I was hoping to post a few orders yesterday but I’m glad I didn’t because late-morning I received an email from Royal Mail saying that they had suspended the Special Delivery next day service due to the bad weather. Next ...