Virginia Cheeseman Blog

My week in sunny Cyprus was bliss. I am actually writing this blog using my iPad, on the aeroplane because I know just how busy I am going to be when I get back home! Everything will need feeding and there will be a mountain of emails to reply to and phone calls to make and then there's the people in my life (who I love dearly, but...), must take mum in-law shopping/to collect new hearing aids and collect nephews kids from school tomorrow. Need to shop for birthday presents (missed 5 close family birthdays in the week I was away), big family barbecue on Saturday to catch up with everyone. I would love to show off my suntan but suspect it will be an indoor party, wearing jeans and jumper ( according to son's view of the weather). My wonderful (but pretty useless) daughter has been holding the fort, spraying the bugs, morning and night, feeding the Hissing cockroaches every day (I have way too many, must sell some), replacing bramble when necessary and topping up water jars. I ...

Thank heavens for the rain! The bank holiday weekend was a complete washout in our area and I assume elsewhere, it would have been nice to see some sunshine but I'm not complaining as I think it was the busiest weekend that I have ever had. It seemed every time I checked my emails there was another order or two, it was amazing. I ended up working all weekend to get everything ready for sending on Tuesday but that's fine as I really wanted to clear some stock before I go away next week. I haven't mentioned my holiday before and I am only sharing with my 'blog readers' now, I won't be putting any information on the website until Monday. I am off to Cyprus for a week of sunshine and relaxation with hubby (with plenty of bug and reptile hunting thrown in). I have deliberately kept it quiet because each time I mention going away my orders completely dry up and so our week's holiday costs us a fortune in lost orders! Time will tell if my ploy has worked but I fe...

Friday again! Not sure where this week has gone, it has flown by. I have obviously been busy (nothing new there!). I have been rearranging my heavy plastic boxes that sit on a large shelving unit. I have been sorting out a multitude of millipedes and re-housing some of them. The problem is that when I have taken out the millipedes that I can see from the large box of mulch, leaves and pieces of wood, there may well be tiny babies and possibly eggs that I have not seen. I am therefore putting those 'used' boxes on a higher shelf and not disturbing them for a couple of weeks (perhaps longer). I can then get them down and check again before I empty the contents onto my flower beds (what's left of my flower beds since I discovered hedgehogs in our garden and can no longer use slug pellets). I have taken some of the millipedes off my website as I need to hold back stock for breeding. The Fire millipedes are beautiful, I would hate to see these disappear from the hobby so I nee...

Quick, quick blog - I am finally off to Legoland with my nephew's family, a trip we have put off on two previous Fridays due to pouring rain (Friday is always my 'out and about day' as there is no Special Delivery and therefore I cannot post orders). To those who worry when I mention not being here, the house in never empty (our daughter has found a new job but doesn't start until Monday). I have been very busy this week and feel quite pleased with myself. I picked up some more beautiful, captive bred tarantulas and a fantastic new species of Assassin bug, they are now all housed up happily. I have been doing well with Facebook this week, I have made several posts and am finally getting to understand it better. I love the way it shows how many people the post has reached and how many have 'liked' it, also I do now view the comments and have realised that I should 'like' them in response. I'm not so great at replying to messages, I wish everyone ...

All go here this week. I have had lots of new spiders come in (well I went to collect them, alas not from the tropics but from a fellow tarantula breeder). I haven't yet put them all on my website but it is a job that I intend to do today. I also have a few Imperial scorpions, they are captive bred, large juveniles, sadly they have become really rare now. The adults are truly magnificent creatures but seldom seen these days. The new tarantulas are mostly 'medium' sized so they are well established, with beautiful colouring. Business was brisk at the beginning of this week and I sold plenty of tarantula spiders so I have some vacated boxes made up for the new arrivals but not quite enough. Hopefully I will sell lots more spiders next week but I must admit that orders have been very thin on the ground over the last couple of days. Perhaps everyone has gone away on holiday? Who could blame them with the awful weather we seem to be having, it is rain, rain and more rain in...

August and peak holiday season but I have had a busy week with lots of orders so I'm not complaining (that makes a change). I spent a very pleasant couple of days up in London with hubby on Tuesday and Wednesday which of course put me behind with everything. I would love to say that I will catch up next week but I have my nephew's three kids on Wednesday and then we are going to Legoland on Friday (I won the tickets). Plus hubby is again away on a week's training course with his work. I plan to post out orders on Monday and Thursday as usual and most probably Tuesday too. Today I have the wonderful weekly task of feeding all my larger spiders, however many I sell they never seem to get any less. I clearly have way too many! As you all know by now, I am gradually trying to be more sensible with what I sell, or rather what I stock. The trouble being that a lot of the bugs that I love just don't sell and take up far more time than those that sell well. I am gradually ...

Sunshine this morning which makes a change, I thought autumn was setting in with all the rain and dark skies this week. July has been a good month for business but it is now the holiday season and orders have been thin on the ground for the last few days. I have been trying to catch up on practical jobs in the bug room that keep getting put off. I have set up a large mixed millipede box and have been gradually sorting my multitude of millipede species. It seems silly to have so many smaller boxes with just one or two individuals left in there. I have of course been checking as closely as possible that I haven't thrown out any babies. Hopefully I haven't! I am selling the assorted millipedes at a knock down price on my website. If they lay eggs in there I will have to then sell the babies as 'mixed' too as I won't have a clue what they are! It is still all go here with a rather chaotic home life. I can't help getting involved with too many things and too man...

More ups and downs! On the good side my mother in-law's stent was fitted in her heart yesterday and I have nearly reached the magical 500 likes on Facebook but on the down side my poor daughter was ousted from a job she loved yesterday and is now unemployed (I would love to rant to the world but probably best not to). Great relief that I finally found the Giant Asian scorpion who has been on the loose since last week. I was actually panicking that she could have got out of my 'sealed' bug room. I had visions of her going next door to greet our new next door neighbours and their workmen (building an extension). I can't imagine where she has been hiding. Animals are frequently going walkabout in my bug room but they are generally located very quickly. The room isn't that big so goodness knows how a 6" black scorpion could hide for a week! I had the room apart several times but as you can imagine I have a huge number of tanks, boxes and various cages so there ar...

Ups and downs of life! I was going to say 'a bug lady's' life but it has had very little to do with the bugs, more family issues that I obviously cannot go into in my blog. Thankfully my mother in-law's heart operation should go ahead soon, we have visited several hospital departments this week for umpteen tests. Anyway back to the bugs - no more floods thank goodness but I have had to empty several large tanks as they were too water logged to dry out naturally. The bug room is still pretty damp in places so it looks a bit of a state but my hubby is away on a course next week so I intend to knuckle down and get everything back on track. I have lots of bugs and spiders breeding and some stunning specimens coming along. I am just about keeping up with Facebook but I must admit that Instagram has fallen a bit by the wayside this week (note to self - must try harder). I was searching through an old folder this week, I didn't find what I was looking for but I did...

The flood! I could have done with an Ark to rescue my bugs last Saturday. After a huge storm during Friday night I discovered in the morning that my bug room was awash. If you are a regular reader of my blog you may recall that this has happened before but not to this extent! Basically, the flat roof on my office and bug room has a drainage gully running along the middle, a ridiculous design but unless we could afford to knock it down and start again (which we can't) we just have to cope with it. The storm washed moss from the roof of our house into the gully, it overflowed and poured into my bug room and thankfully to a lesser extent, my office too. In real terms it could have been a lot worse. The crickets were all drowned as they were in plastic boxes and several containers of beetle larvae, cockroaches and stick insects were pretty wet but it was mostly equipment that was ruined and had to be thrown away. I am still trying to dry out the floor now. On a brighter note, it h...