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.