Virginia Cheeseman Blog

Happy New Year! Let’s hope this year is full of happiness, good health and a bit of wealth wouldn’t go amiss J . Talking of going amiss, I hate Royal Mail. I have been a loyal customer for more years than I care to admit and they really let me down over Christmas. There was clearly some sort of breakdown with the tracking system on the Monday before Christmas and only half of my parcels arrived the next day. The weather was pretty mild, they were well packed so not too much of an issue but then it appeared that they were lost as the only information showing, was when I dropped them at my local post office. There ensued an epic ordeal for me and those customers affected. I visited my local post office, spoke to staff, was on the phone to Royal Mail for hours and all to no avail. It seemed to me that a bag of parcels had been stolen as I knew that two bags were collected from the post office and then one disappeared off the radar. To cut a very long story short - the parcels have now bee...

Run out of time! Off Christmas shopping today, finished cards yesterday, get tree tomorrow - "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas". Cancelled tomorrow's open afternoon due to lack of interest. seems I'm too out in the sticks here to run 'open afternoons' but I have had plenty of visitors recently so that's fine, I had a customer yesterday and I have a guy calling tomorrow morning. Both these people have visited before which is lovely so it is obviously the way to go at the moment. Perhaps I will try again in the Spring, when the evenings are lighter and life isn't quite so frantic. Happy Christmas everyone and Best Wishes for the New Year, your custom and friendship are much appreciated!

Some ideas are good and some not so good J I think the spider evening falls into the category of ‘not so good’ as nobody came L That said I had plenty of feedback, there is no doubt that most of my customers are just too far away to make the journey. The number of customers who have been visiting me recently have not necessarily been local but they are calling at a time/day that suits them, sometimes on their way to or from work or more often on a day off. Friday certainly wasn’t the right evening to choose. I am not that far out of London and the traffic around here is pretty dire in the evenings but especially bad on Fridays. It is dark so early now and this didn’t help either. I have a list of people who have visited me this year and I should have sent invitations but just never found the time. I am still going ahead with my open afternoon next Saturday. I know I have at least one person coming J I have put the information on Facebook and the ‘pink info box’ on my website. I am aski...

My first spider evening is today! ‘No rules’ - seemed such a good idea at the time but now I’m panicking, I am worried that nobody will turn up, I know there is the possibility that too many people will turn up but I have convinced myself that I will be all alone. Hubby says “go with the flow, I will be here if you need me” but I am not one to go with the flow and I could panic for England. Time will tell, obviously I will be clearing and cleaning the bug room today and my office too. I managed to get some new captive bred spiders in yesterday, cutting it fine but I said I would try. This time of the year is always the slowest for sales. Most people are surprised when I say this but my business is a hobby business and people don’t spend money on themselves before Christmas as they have presents to buy for friends and family. There are a number of people who buy tarantulas for their loved ones and I must say that I have sold a fair number this month but really nothing much else. I no lo...

I’m now trying to write something quickly as I’m also cooking dinner and I’m trying to be sociable as my mother in-law has just arrived. I would usually write the blog in the morning but I have about a million jobs on my to-do list (perhaps a slight exaggeration) and I need to get as many as I can done tomorrow before the weekend. I am ‘once again’ trying not to spend the whole weekend working as it really annoys my family but it is a problem when you work from home. I am still trying to get straight from being away for two weeks. So, I’m sitting here on the sofa between my mother in-law and husband, tapping away on my iPad and hoping nobody notices J No, I didn’t get away with it and it’s now Friday morning J This time next week I will be having my first spider evening. I know I said no rules but I’m getting a bit worried now as the post that I put on a Facebook reached over 1,000 people I reckon my bug room could accommodate about ten people at a push! That said I still may end up a...

Getting there! Almost back to normal, everything in the bug room has been fed, cleaned and watered since returning from Costa Rica (most of them twice). All is looking good, Georgie (assisted by Josh, her boyfriend) did a great job with all the animals while I was away. I am trying to cut back on the animals until after Christmas but everything keeps breeding so I am still spending hours caring for the ‘mini zoo’. My motto for moving forwards is “more personal - less postal” and it is going well. I’ve had a few people call to collect their orders since I returned and I have finally sorted out the dates for a spider evening and open afternoon. I am always trying new rules and regulations when people call so I am going to be different this time by not setting any! Not sure how this will go, it may be chaos as my bug room is not very big or perhaps no one will turn up. We will see, I would like to have regular events so this will be an experiment. I have many pretty spiders that nobody ge...

What time is it? The holiday in Costa Rica was brilliant, we saw lots of amazing animals and took a zillion photographs. We got back on Tuesday but I’m still feeling shattered from the 11 hour flight and 6 hour time difference. Georgie did well, looking after all the animals, big and small but I know she found it really tough (2 weeks is a long time). I started sorting out all the bugs as soon as we got home but I think it’s going to be a week or so until I get straight. I had intended to write a nice long blog about my trip but to be honest I just don’t have the time. I managed to send off yesterday, all the UK orders that came in while I was away and I have the ‘rest of Europe’ orders sorted, ready to go on Monday. Everything looks good in the bug room, my beautiful Spearmint Asian praying mantids have matured while I was away and they are absolutely stunning! I was a bit worried that my Florida Wolf spider had escaped but Georgie assured me that she had simply dug down and just this...