Virginia Cheeseman Blog

Happy Christmas and thank you for all your support throughout this year. I am shutting up shop today and will be back and raring to go on Monday January 5th. I would love to say that I will take it easy over the festive break but it is sure to be as busy as ever! Sadly my aunty died last Friday and the funeral is just two days before Christmas. However I do have lots of fun family events planned to fit in around caring for my 'mini zoo'. I wish I had managed to cut down on the animals a bit more but at least I will have plenty of stock for January (a surprisingly busy month for me). The bugs are all cosy in their room next to my office. I can just pop in and out, it is so much easier than when they lived in the log cabin at the bottom of the garden. Royal Mail have done extremely well this Christmas, I only had one parcel delayed by a day and no animals have died or been damaged in transit at all. My last day for posting orders was Wednesday, I was going to send on T...

Getting closer, in fact my great nieces tell me that it is only 13 sleeps until Christmas. I have decided that next Thursday will be my last day for posting orders before Christmas, I think it is far too risky to post after that date. Therefore any orders received after 9am on Thursday will be held over until the new year. I must say Royal Mail seem to be doing a good job, I have only had one parcel held up and it arrived fine the following day (although it is always a worry when something doesn't arrive on time). I keep hearing about a 'weather bomb' up north but certainly where we are (just above London) the weather hasn't been too bad at all. Most of the week has been quite bright and even sunny. It was 5c when I went out in the car yesterday morning, not exactly sunbathing temperature but at least not freezing. I haven't had a lot of orders this week so I have spent my time rearranging things in the bug room and trying to simplify things for Christmas. This...

Christmas Panic! It is that time of the year again, I seem to be rushing around and getting nowhere. Last week I had a couple of days down in Brighton with hubby who had a week off from training for his new job (he's back up in Manchester again this week). It was very nice, we did some Christmas shopping and visited friends and family. Then on Saturday we went to the AGM for the Bucks Wildlife Trust. The meeting was held at the Oxford University, Natural History museum. Before the meeting we signed up for a museum tour. What I hadn't realised is that each group was allocated a specific area for the tour. We got fossils 'rocks with very old, dead bits in the middle' (as you can tell I wasn't impressed). However after the AGM I met up with an old customer of mine who just happens to be in charge of the museum and took us on the most fantastic tour behind the scenes! We were really spoilt, being shown the very first known pinned bug (a butterfly) and items collected ...

New stock arriving today! I have found a plus point to my husband working away in Manchester. My African bugs are with a guy 'up North' and he was planning to deliver them next week but I will be away for a few days and won't be here to receive them. I then had a brainstorm that perhaps my hubby could bring the bugs back with him when he returns today, several phone calls later it seems the two locations are only about an hour apart so the guy with the bugs has kindly agreed to deliver them to my husband's place of work and he will be returning with them later this afternoon. Goodness knows what his car share colleague will make of it. Hopefully the box will be sealed and she will be none the wiser! I have now resigned myself to the fact that I will still be inundated with bugs over the festive season. I need to buy in stock when it is available and I have been offered some great creatures in the last couple of weeks. I have put many on special offer but sales are ...

Swings & roundabouts, that's what it has been like this week. I barely had a single order until one came in that was possibly my largest ever. It took hours to pack and I am still sorting out what I have and haven't got left. You may have noticed that my beetle page is much depleted. I need to find the time to go through each box and see what I have left. Once I know what's there I can put them back on my website. It was great to sell so much stock so near to Christmas but on the same day as the order went I received an email telling me that my long awaited bugs and beasties from Africa were finally in and I will be receiving them next week. There will be some lovely creepy crawlies and spiders but it would have been great if they had come sooner or after Christmas. I am not doing very well with my great idea of cutting back. I have all the African animals coming in but I also bought a number of millipedes and some really nice Imperial scorpions earlier this week. ...

What a change in the weather! This time last week I was setting off for Chessington World of Adventures with 7 adults and 10 kids from my family. We had a great day and basked in 23c sunshine, we were in tee shirts. This week has been freezing (literally). Oh well at least it is nearly Christmas according my local Tesco (doubles as a post office, where I send all my parcels from). I went in yesterday and there was a banner across the door saying 'Merry Christmas' and the place is decked out with decorations everywhere. Most bizarre I thought? Not much to report on the bug front but I have been working away on the website. I am determined to improve it, I just wish I were more technically minded. However as I do change bits and pieces I realise how limited the actual website program is. My web guy is great but there is only so much he can alter within the confines of the program. This could of course be rectified by spending a few thousand pounds on having my own website bu...

Happy Halloween! I am writing my blog a day early as tomorrow is my niece's 40th birthday and we are holding the celebrations at Chessington World of Adventures (undoubtedly with several thousand other people as it is both half term and Halloween). Still it is her choice and she does have 4 kids (my sister's other 6 grandchildren will be there too). I love Halloween with all the bugs and beasties but I will obviously have to take it easy on the rides with my bad back (baby rides only I think). I will take myself off to the zoo bit, they have some lovely animals there. The Binturong is amazing, Google tells me it is also called a bearcat. She comes out for shows and the audience are asked to sniff her as she evidently smells of popcorn. Sadly they only pick out kids for this task so I haven't actually smelt her myself, life isn't fair! Sales have again been pretty slow this week. Everyone is probably out in the sunshine, amazing 20c at the end of October, long may i...

Still rushing but for a different reason this week. I have the time to write the blog but I must get off the computer as my hubby needs to upgrade it. We bought the new hard drive weeks ago but there has never been a good day to sort it out as I am always working on it! Clearly today is not great but as my hubby starts a new job on Monday and will be around a lot less it is now or never. I am sick of the computer constantly crashing and me needing to climb under the desk and over some boxes to get to the plug, to then reset it. Thankfully my back is getting better but it was a real trial resetting the computer when it was very bad. It has been a slow week for sales. What has happened to all my customers? Last week was busy, next week is half term so I'm sure it will be busy again. I will be sending out orders on Monday morning but then I will be at my dear friend Joyce's funeral in the afternoon. Sorry I don't think I will be able to answer the phones on Monday, I just...

Ups and downs of life, I was going to write a far more cheery blog this morning. I did in fact sit down at my desk and intended to start the blog Hurray! But before I got started I had a phone call informing me that my next door neighbour (up until May when she moved into sheltered accommodation) died yesterday. She was a great friend and a great help too as she took in parcels for me (I had a permanent notice on my door saying "if not in please leave next door"). We had "tea and a chat" most days and I will really miss her. The only good thing is that I visited her the day before she died. With all my woes recently I hadn't managed to see her and I would have felt absolutely awful if I hadn't seen her. The better news is (the reason the blog was going to be titled Hurray) that I saw the physio on Wednesday and she said I could go back in the gym. I have to take it very easy but I went in that afternoon and yesterday and my back hasn't been any wors...

Trying hard to keep everything going, all this has certainly made me realise that things have got to change. I have to work less and live more! I must stop panicking about every little thing and dare I say it "try and calm down". My daily visits to the gym seem to have been replaced by visits to the doctor, opticians, chiropractor etc. However I should be fine, my eye is healing and hopefully my back is too. I am praying that when I see the chiropractor next week I can go back in the gym but clearly I will have to take care and ease up on the weights. I went to the AES exhibition last Saturday and spent a lot of time just chatting rather than rushing around everywhere looking for the best buys as I generally do. It was very pleasant and I got to catch up with lots of people who I have known for years but only see occasionally. I did buy a few bits and pieces, some nice spiderlings, beetle larvae and a beautiful pair of giant grasshoppers. I am hoping they will breed for ...