Notes from the Potting Shed

Virgil Twobyfour’s Weekly Almanac For the Week Commencing Monday 16th June 2025

Also known as: The Fourth Monday After the Droop of St. Aldous, the Feast of the Unlaced Brogue, and traditionally, “Stern Weasel Week” across the Low Peatlands.

🌤️ Meteorological Glimpse
Expect intermittent spells of damp, with occasional bursts of evangelical drizzle. Thunder may be heard reciting passages from the Apocrypha (Common Duck edition), particularly around midday Wednesday.
Barometers should be turned upside-down on Thursday to prevent hubris.

🌒 Horoscopic Gubbins
Those Born Under the Sign of The Yawning Pike (16th–18th June, odd-numbered years only)
Blessed with a natural suspicion of escalators and an intuitive grasp of obscure municipal by-laws. This week, you will find significance in a mislabelled jar and accidentally commune with a spiritually conflicted mole.

The Pouch of Quaint Regrets (Ongoing until the next eclipse visible from Uttoxeter)
This extended sign covers those who just missed being born under anything else. You will receive a parcel containing only vowels. Do not eat the string.

📜 Classifieds
FOR SALE: Three unwholesome cloches (suspected haunted). Smell of treacle and spite. £7 each or all three in exchange for a sketch of the moon in biro. See Bert at the Slouching Duck pub.

WANTED: Someone to pretend to be a grandfather clock in a family photo for inheritance reasons. Must be able to chime at will and not mind being wound.

LOST: One commemorative spoon from the Bicentenary of the Great Socks Panic. Last seen in a lasagna. No questions asked.

👁️ Village Gossip Digest
• Mrs Crennell’s wisteria has definitely started whispering back.
• Suspicious sounds heard in the old cow tunnel have been traced to an elderly jazz badger and his reeds.
• The Shrieking Glade Garden Centre reopened under the new management of the twin sisters from Upper Glib — the one who claims to be her own mother and the other who speaks only in riddles from the back of seed packets.

🕯️ A Woodcut from the Ancient Shelves
This week’s illustration comes from “The Grumbly Lexicon of Eastern Muck,” depicting "The Interlocutor of Sods", a lesser-known spirit of harvest compost who insists that offerings be left in the form of limericks carved into marrow.

🖼️ (See adjacent post: “Behold the Interlocutor of Sods and his Wheelbarrow of Fate.”)

🪑 Local Event Calendar
Tuesday:
Annual Fork-Lending Reconciliation Ceremony, 3pm, behind the abandoned petting zoo (bring own ferret).

Thursday:
Emergency Village Council Meeting to discuss the ongoing “Mystery of the Soup That Wasn't.” All theories welcome; no spoons allowed.

Saturday:
Rural Interpretive Dance & Egg Moot, featuring the Morris Lurkers and an improvised field scream choir.

🔮 Virgil's Notes on the Unfolding Now
"Time is a hedgerow: prickly, full of birds, and occasionally a dog gets stuck in it. Be like the dog. But bring sandwiches."

More to follow midweek.
(If this appears oddly formatted on Instagraph, blame Keith and his luminous thumbs.)
Yours compostably,
Virgil Twobyfour
Shwami of the Eighth Notion, Licensed Yam-Reader, Keeper of the Third Ladle