Virginia Cheeseman Blog

All going well J I have just re-read my last blog entry (I don’t usually). Wow, it was spot on! I wrote it when I was on holiday in Cyprus and it shows. Away from the chaos of home, I clearly had time to think and put it all down in words. I have been true to my word and have been cutting back on animals and paperwork since returning from our holiday. I feel much better for it and I still have a crazy number of bugs to care for, especially tarantulas. I have been working on sales and last month was excellent. I started the month with a 10% discount off all items sold through my website and it was so successful that I continued it throughout the entire month. This month I am concentrating on tarantulas and have the “make me an offer on tarantulas” running. I am still trying to get down to a number whereby I can carry out a proper stock take and sort out exact numbers. I feed them all once a week (different sizes on different days) but it takes so long that I can’t find the time needed t...

How honest should I be? Oh well, I always tell the truth so here goes. I am sitting on the terrace at our favourite hotel in Cyprus as I write this. It is boiling hot and the bright blue sea is calm and beautiful. Absolutely perfect :) But life at home is not perfect, it is chaotic and non-stop (I have the ulcer and insomnia to prove it). I love my bugs and my super customers but things have got to change. I have been trying to slow things down for a while now but come February, I finally get my pension and after Christmas I will be looking after my gorgeous grandson Milo when my daughter returns to work. It will only be one or two days a week but I am also carer to my mother in-law with dementia and there are others in the family who require my help (I cannot elaborate in an open blog). I am under a lot of pressure to give up the bugs but I don’t want to. I have many breeding projects in progress, especially with the arachnids and millipedes. However, things cannot go on the way they ...

Making a start on the blog but not sure how long I have with my little grandson in his bouncy chair. Unfortunately, Milo’s dad had an accident at work this week and is back at the hospital this morning, having the wound assessed, yuk! It’s a crazy busy month of the year, the bugs are growing, the garden is growing. My hubby has just returned from his annual motorbike trip to Spain. I am desperately trying to cut down on the bugs a bit before the summer (assuming we will have one, I’ve still got be my heated blanket on most nights). I’ve been really successful with breeding so many animals but especially arachnids this year. I recently set up a new category called “Bulk Buy Babies” to sell some of my surplus and I’m certainly open to offers on my tarantula collection. I have three amazing spiders with egg sacs currently, they are Caribena versicolor, Neoholothele incei (gold) and Phormictopus cautus. I also have a number of gravid scorpions and some with babies on their backs, plus my a...

Honestly, I’m not getting any younger and I never seem to stop. I have such a huge number of bugs to look after (many are not shown on my website because I am trying to breed them or when it comes to tarantulas, I am keeping them until they moult and are ok to post out). I spend so much time feeding and cleaning. I am still learning all the time and doing really well with most of my breeding projects. It’s that time of year when everything is having babies, tarantulas, scorpions, cockroaches, millipedes etc. I can’t believe how well my idea of keeping only bugs that don’t need daily care is going. This means that I can lock up and go away for a weekend at last! Of course, I still have my wonderful daughter to check in but she too now has a baby. He is simply adorable and I love him taking up my time (: I’m really surprised that I don’t miss keeping stick insects but I honestly don’t. I really, really don’t miss collecting bramble (such an embarrassing part of my job, I could tell some ...

A new chapter in my life! You may have seen on my Facebook page that our wonderful daughter is now a mummy herself. It is all so exciting! Of course, I am already Nanna to Bob (my son’s son) and now I have another beautiful grandson called Milo. I will be pretty busy over the next few weeks in my new Mum/Nanna duties. I would never be able to go on holiday if it were not for Georgie looking after everything so it is only fair that I spend time looking after her now. Thankfully Spring is just around the corner (almost - only 26 days to go). The garden is already coming to life with flowers and my pond is absolutely full of frogspawn. If you live near enough and would like some, you are very welcome. No, I won’t be posting it J. I just hate the cold, in my ideal world the temperature would never dip below 20c. Everything in my bug room is doing well. I bought a crazy number of scorpions at the SEAS exhibition at the end of January, sadly all wild caught but hopefully I will be successful...

Happy New Year! The master plan is going well, I just need to stick to it. My work is ever changing, as is life. I’m not a fan of change but I need to continue streamlining my business in order to keep it going. I only have just over a year until I receive a pension but I don’t want to retire, I intend to just cut things down a bit. My wonderful daughter (second in command with the bugs) is expecting her first baby next month and I’m thinking I will be very much on Nanna duties. I therefore can’t go along to the SEAS exhibition at the end of the month and restock for the entire year as I generally do J However, I will be going along and buying from my specific shopping list (the now famous clip board). Hopefully the baby won’t be early but just in case I have booked a room at the hotel that I can cancel without losing my money. I love the SEAS show, great venue, great organisers, great socializing and hopefully some amazing creatures too! I’m really concentrating on breeding what I hav...

Can’t believe how busy I am, this is generally my quiet time of year. It’s very welcome because December is always a short month for me. As Christmas approaches the post can be erratic or snow falls and I have to stop sending out orders until the New Year. Last Christmas we also had Royal Mail strikes to contend with so I gave up after a few days into December. Hopefully this year will be better! All is going very well with my master plan. When I gave up stick insects and the like, I thought my days as the Bug Lady may be numbered but I’m doing really well with my spiders, scorpions, millipedes, cockroaches etc. I am always looking at ways to cut down on my workload and still keep my business going. I will need to adapt next year as our daughter is expecting her first baby in February. I’m thinking I will be needed quite a bit J. Obviously, I am delighted and only too happy to help. Let’s face it, I couldn’t go on holiday if she didn’t look after all my animals so it’s only fair that I...

One word ‘Trustpilot’. Wow, what a boost it has been to my business (and my ego). I have been saying for a very long time that many of the product reviews I receive sound more like a review of me than the product and that it would be good if people could submit a review of the business rather than an individual item and then I discovered Trustpilot. A customer wrote a lovely review on there and sometime later I spoke to my website guy about the possibility of adding this to my website. He said that it was possible and then began sorting it out. Unfortunately, at that time I lost my elder brother and didn’t feel able to concentrate on anything new so we shelved the idea. However, a few weeks later Trustpilot was set up as a widget on my website and the five star reviews starting appearing. It has been amazing and I am delighted with the amount of reviews I have received. I read and reply to each and every one, I have been told that I don’t need to but I want to! I am extremely grateful ...

Long overdue as ever J My life is changing, it always has but things are so very different now. Covid, leaving the EU, dare I say it ‘not being as young as I once was’ and last but not least, shifting priorities. The bug room is my very own sanctuary to escape to but I don’t want to spend all my time in there! The master plan is going well, I have stuck to my guns and now have a zillion tarantulas and plenty of other arachnids, plus various creepy crawlies but no more leaf eating bugs J (ok, just a couple of Horse-Head grasshoppers but they are so cute) I am certainly seeing results from my new regime. I have more time to concentrate on care, breeding and learning about the creatures that I keep (I do love a Google search, how did I ever live without it?). My husband is away this week on his annual ‘boys motorbike trip to Spain’. Much as I would love to go to Spain, I don’t fancy whizzing around the Pyrenees on the back of a motorbike. I have been learning Spanish for several years now...

First day of spring! A good day to write a new blog post. It’s a lovely time of year when everything comes to life. I was delighted to see the first clump of frogspawn in my pond yesterday (a nice Mother’s Day treat). I was beginning to panic that none of my Hissing cockroaches had produced babies this year but just last week it began and now I have plenty. My Tail-less Whip scorpion has been obviously gravid for weeks and I was beginning to think something was wrong but all of a sudden, I found her with lots of little babies clinging to her back. I think everything has been a bit delayed by the cold spell of weather this year. Of course, the clocks go forward next weekend and then it really will feel like spring. What with the cold weather, bank holidays and strikes (still looming over us) it has been a difficult time for posting out bugs. I like, and also need to be organised so having to keep changing my posting days has been a real pain. Everything seems to be going well in the bug...