I have always been accused of having many interests but no passions.
Hmm – not true, but I know what people are trying to tell me! The house is littered with moderate paintings, nearly finished DIY, recipe books for food that I shall never cook.
The study has bits and pieces of expeditions – of an urban kind – that I mean to go back to some day; the loft has a widely mixed collection of sporting kit, camping equipment and bits and pieces that I don’t want to throw out – “just in case”!
As for things I’ve done; I can sail a dinghy (haven’t done so for ages!), shoot well enough to feed myself (ditto), blot tears, use a long-bow tolerably; I can ride a horse, swim after a fashion, carve a wooden bear, sharpen an axe, talk to a child, write a homily for public delivery, daub a poem, build a boat, sing too loudly but more or less in tune, write a mediocre verse; I love Scottish country dancing – but only do it once a year, read intermittently, play chess not often and very badly, once upon a time I played bridge rather better.……….
I am by no means unique in this list of skills, nor particularly accomplished!
But I find richness and much pleasure in this variety; although it brings with it a little sense of things left undone; it would be very good to find a way of signing some of these things off and moving on – to more!
But why “The Pedlar’s Pack”?
The story goes that after a dream, John Chapman, the pedlar, walked to London to seek his fortune but instead found the treasure in his own back garden.
I think this could be really what I am trying to achieve and true for many of us.
The Pedlar’s Pack aims to help us to find “the treasure at home”; to recognise and celebrate little achievements (and all of us have a similar but wildly different collection of achievements), to offer a way to end to any sense of guilt, to clear some clutter both physically and mentally and to empower the next stage of my life.
The original pedlars were travelling salesmen;
just like their packs, The Pedlar’s Pack will be both a working place, and a showcase. Although I initially intended it as a forward looking activity alone, the Pack will also accept older, completed items and activities, and will gradually build to a record, an autobiography, a celebration and declaration “I have lived, and I am alive!”.
