Notes from the Potting Shed

Ah, well now — what a week it’s been, or hasn’t, depending on your definition of ‘week’. I seem to have misplaced Thursday entirely, though I’ve a hazy recollection of standing behind the bus shelter at Lower Mumbleswick, talking to young Dennis Flack about mushrooms, or possibly marmalade — the line blurs with Dennis, who speaks chiefly in grumbles and peculiar whistling noises. Either way, we agreed, as men must, that the village is sorely in need of a new bench.

The old one, as you’ll all know, was removed last summer by the Parish Council after it was commandeered by the Lesser Spotted Rucksack ducks, who’d taken to nesting there and charging tourists a ha’penny to watch them eat crisps. Councillor Figgis was keen to see the back of them, or so I heard from his brother, Wibberly Figgis — a man much like his sibling but with less hair, more elbow patches, and a fondness for carrying weather vanes about his person.

Now, while pondering this, I found myself somewhat inexplicably in the alleyway behind Mrs Pank’s Sweet & Curio Shoppe, formerly the site of a thriving corsetry and ferret accessories establishment before the unfortunate ferret incident of '89. Mrs Pank herself was lurking behind the tattered lace curtains, as is her wont, casting a shape in the window that no curtain should rightfully have to frame. I gave her a wave, or possibly a blessing, and moved on.

And I’ll tell you this, friends — there’s a strange off-vibration in the air of late. A sort of low humming you feel behind the teeth, like the village is quietly bracing itself for… something. Some say it’s the imminent, overnight arrival of the Travelling Fayre. You know the one — comes without warning, leaves without trace, and always takes a little something of the village with it. Last time it left behind a mirror that reflected events five minutes into the future and a goat with a human-sounding cough. If you hear the faint tinkling of sinister hurdy-gurdy music in the dark hours, keep your curtains shut and your best coins close.

On my way home, I thought I glimpsed The Tatterman too, drifting round the edge of Hobb’s Copse, near the old standing stones. Only a flicker, mind you — a thin figure in raggedy cloth, all angles and forgotten spaces. Could’ve been mist. Could’ve been a trick of the light. Could’ve been Molly Sprocket testing one of her dreadful mechanical frock-coats. But it’s worth keeping a salt shaker by the door just in case.

I should mention at this juncture that I haven’t yet replaced the bulb in the potting shed, which has taken on a decidedly eldritch atmosphere of late. The shadows in there are unusually long and do occasionally mutter amongst themselves, but I find if you hum an old folk tune and keep your eyes on the sack of slug pellets, they tend to leave you be.

Anyway — I forget what point I was attempting to make, if any. Possibly something about marmalade. Or mushrooms. Or the business of the unattached shoe that appeared Thursday last upon the Green, which several of our number insist was seen moving of its own volition. I suspect young Molly again, though, as is traditional, I can neither confirm nor deny.

Right — the kettle’s boiling and there’s a crumb of Eccles cake left that I mean to confront. I’ll leave you with this: if you find a ferret in your airing cupboard, don’t immediately jump to conclusions. Sometimes it’s just a hat with ambitions.

Yours in partial bewilderment,
Virgil T.