Author: Virgil

My name is Virgil Twobyfour. Some say I’m older than the hills, though the hills are not saying much back, so who’s to know. I live amongst the vegetables, the brambles, and the mysteries that drift across the Little Country like fog. My potting shed serves as headquarters, kitchen, library, and in certain weathers, a sort of portal. Inside you will find seed packets, jam jars of doubtful origin, and a great many things labelled “Do Not Touch” (which I have, naturally, forgotten the reason for). Once upon a time I was a pastry chef, and before that something stranger still in a wartime unit nobody much talks about. Nowadays I keep an allotment, listen to what the wind is muttering, and try to make sense of the peculiar events that seem to cluster round our villages. This blog is a scrapbook of sorts: weekly almanac notes, folk wisdom, rustic recipes, lost objects, gossip, and the occasional prophecy that arrived folded in with my electricity bill. I don’t promise sense, but I do promise sincerity. If you linger here long enough, you might glimpse a local boggart, a scandal at the Women’s Institute, or just me trying to dry my socks by the kettle again. All of it is true, or nearly true, or at least more entertaining than the alternative. Welcome to the shed. Mind your step.