Busy, busy, busy...

We opened the museum on 15th April.

Preparations to open kept us very busy, and we are still working from morning until night. There is so much to do! Now the museum is open, and we are starting to understand the rhythm's of the place.

Highlights of the past few weeks have been:-

• Collecting wood ants from the forest for the ant-heap in the museum.
• Seeing a red squirel - on the window-sill!
• Finding a dragonfly nymph in the pond. Dragonflies spend the majority of their lives as nymphs.
• Feeding the praying mantis
  
• Selling our first honey
  
• Finishing our two guest rooms
• Finishing our own bedroom and bathroom. We are still 'camping' though; we need a wardrobe before we can move in.
  

The weather has improved, and spring is arriving. I heard a cuckoo this morning. Spring here seems to come a little later than Limoges - just an hour away. It may be the altitude (600m), or maybe the variety of deciduous trees here (oak, chestnut and beech I think). The trees still have a redish tinge from the buds rather than the vibrant green when the buds start to open.

Introducing...

Every museum needs a cat. This one has two.
They are nearly wild and live outside - coming to the house once a day for food.

We haven't given them names, it doesn't seem appropriate. If they had names before, the previous owner could only remember one of them (which we immediately forgot).

The grey (female) disappeared for a couple of days and we were getting worried. The black (male) spent an afternoon trying to tell us something - later in the day we found the grey had got itself locked into the large room at the top of the museum building. We let it out and fed it, and for once it was almost friendly - purring and rubbing our legs. It is now the more friendly of the two.

Angels and devils

Four butterflies emerged from chrysalids today. They like to eat honesty apparently, so we are searching the local garden shops so we can plant some in the garden. The chrysalids of this butterfly look so much like thorns you have to look very closely to see them.

We also discovered that one of the scorpions had eaten the other! We're not sure if it was the male or the female that ate the other - it the was the biggest of the two. Still, I won't have to feed it for a while.

We also had an escapee. A beetle discovered a gap in the wire mesh of its vivarium, and was taking a stroll along the top. It was easily coaxed into a small net and back into its home.

Busy...

We are very busy. We had a trip to Lyon to buy insects last weekend. We got 10 beetles of various sizes and colours, 3 sweet faced phasmes, two giant millipedes, a couple of shy scorpions, a large Chilean tarantula, some large creepy roaches, some butterfly chrysalids pretending to be thorns and some very active and hungry caterpillars. At the same time the work on the house is progressing. Regine's brother is managing the work - we should soon have an office space and a couple of bedrooms with showers for guests.

And then there is the garden and the honey potting, and the shop and the museum... And nothing quite works the way it should... But its really quite a wonderful place to live!

Intrigue in the honey world...

Not a new story, but interesting nonetheless: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1265467,00.html

Arrived

We have arrived. Its still our first week at La Cite des Insectes. We are overwhelmed by the beauty of our surroundings and by the amount of work we have to do to make this place ready for opening in April.

Our journey here was more eventful that we would have liked. We had a snow storm and a tempest. We got lost going round Paris, found many interesting corners of Versaille. Later, my van lost power and started drinking fuel like global warming was a myth, and I had to take the next exit to find a petrol station. It was the middle of nowhere, and Regine (following behind in the second van) started flashing her headlights because she thought I'd lost my marbles. We found a petrol station and a small restaurant - special. The whole journey from Calais to La Cite took from 8:30am until midnight.

Insects in the news

A biodiversity crisis indicated by UK moths in decline

The frog and the mosquito

Ants teach each other a lesson

Could the decline in British sparrows be because of a lack of spiders (spiders are not insects, but you knew that)? Why the scarcity of spiders?

... and a story of termites being spread around in garden mulch (more a rumour than news, but interesting).

Our new website

Our website is live at last.

Its just over a week before we leave for France. The contents of the flat are gradually disappearing into boxes - all due to the heroic efforts of Regine. I've packed a box and a half so far - Regine has packed nearly 70!

Next week we pick up two large vans from Calais, bring them back to London and fill them up. We will have two friends and a couple of 'man with van' people (only without their van).

The Countdown Begins

We have arranged our bank loans, our London flat is sold (we exchanged contracts yesterday) and I have handed in my notice at work. There are five weeks before we move.

We are moving from a flat in London (West Hampstead, Camden) to a farm house in the Limousin, France.

We will be running "La Cité des Insectes", a museum of insects. We will also invite groups (with or without teacher) to share this beautiful part of the world. We hope to bring groups wishing to participate in creative activities (performance, music, art, sculpture), as well as people interested in walking and learning more about the coutryside and some of the local wildlife.

Eating Insects

I recently noticed a few web sites selling edible insects. Is it a passing fad, or a trend which will become mainstream?

I used to be a vegetarian, and still eat very little meat, so the thought of eating an insect is not much stranger than eating any meat. After all we eat shrimps - not that far removed from insects (external skeleton, lots of legs).

First Post

Just to see how it looks.