How do you spend yours?

What is well spent or hard earned? What will heal all things?  What can’t you get back once it’s gone? What is wasted, squandered or well managed? What is there never enough of? What is lost and can be made? What can you be in or out of? What cannot be held back? How do you spend yours?

We expect a lot from our time.

We pride ourselves on being ‘good time keepers’ and yet this is the ultimate misnomer. Time marches on regardless of our perceived control of it. It never truly stands still (although it can feel that way at times!).

It’s interesting that we humans use a lot of currency language when related to time. Perhaps it began when we started to place a monetary value on our time by the hour. What is one hour at work worth to you? Of course your time alone is not what you’re paid for, it is your skills, knowledge and expertise; it is what you DO in that hour that determines your value.

So what of your ‘own’ time, the time that is not paid for by your boss or your customers? Your ‘free’ time, I would argue it is the time with the most value. I would argue that it is anything but free. If we were to continue with our familiar linguistic metaphor of currency, this time is the invaluable time. This is the time where you create your ‘money can’t buy’ existence. In this time memories are made. It is what you DO with this time that determines the value of your life.

This is the time we can make choices about; choices that have the greatest impact on our emotional and physical well-being and of those around us. We can choose to ‘spend’ time doing things that enhance and enrich our lives. We can choose to ‘invest’ that time in our relationships and ourselves. We can allow ourselves and our values to determine where and with whom we cash in our ‘time cheques’.

Awareness of my time is something I take seriously.  I, like everyone else have to make enough money to pay my bills, eat, buy vintage cowboy boots and headscarves (you know that sort of thing) but I have found that when balancing my monthly ‘life statement’ if I have spent enough ‘paid time’ to earn enough money whilst being able to also ‘donate’ time to a cause or organisation I love and have ‘time of my own’ for things like reading books, walking in woods, calling friends, listening to music, cuddling dogs and having dinner with my husband then my ‘happiness/time bank balance’ looks pretty healthy.

Time unlike money cannot be banked. Regardless of our stupid terminology it cannot be ‘saved’ we can’t get back last Thursday because we didn’t use it. Time 'saving’ devices don’t in fact ‘buy us time’ they just mean that the time it used to take to do a job is now reduced. How we choose to spend that ‘extra time’ is still up to us. Time does not know it is ‘extra’, it is just time.

Packwood House is a place where I choose to spend time. It is a place where I have invested and donated time. I am not alone; many like me dedicate regular time to this special place. But of course it is not just our time we invest here. It is ourselves. We spend our time helping you get the most out of yours. Our garden teams work tirelessly for you to enjoy your ‘free time’ walking in our tranquil gardens. Our house teams share stories and knowledge to enhance your time spent in the property. Time is ‘managed’ by our leaders to make sure for us there is ‘always time for cake’ and for you always someone on hand to answer a question, help find a hidden dog or just to give you a smile. Our visitor reception teams help you to ‘plan’ your time so you can know you’ve got all the information to ‘get the most value for your time’ and our conservation teams manage the effects of time in preserving these special places for visitors now and in future generations.

Yes Packwood along with many National Trust places is a ‘step back in time’; a chance to indulge your inner historian and reflect on ‘times gone by’. Or to put your own time in the great timeline of humanity and gain perspective. Packwood’s ‘timeless quality’ allows you to ‘lose a few hours’ but again I would argue that rather than experiencing loss what you gain in those ‘lost hours’ is a sense of calm and peace that in todays often frantic world is time well spent. 

What Is

Well hello to you Positively Packwood readers and thanks once again for joining me! I am back after my wonderful holiday (what do you mean you didn’t notice!?) and it was brilliant fun to be back in Packwood House this weekend.

It’s a funny thing volunteering. You don’t have to do it (obviously) and you don’t get paid for it (again, obviously) but I really miss it when I’m not there. I’m sure it’s the same for everyone this property has such a special place in my heart. Pulling up in the car park or that first view of the house as I cross the road never ceases to make me smile. Taking the time to notice the subtle changes to the flowers as the year rolls around week by week.

This place has an energy all of its own. As I make my way through the courtyard and the warm sun heats up the roses giving off an intoxicating scent, entering the cool darkness of the flower room I smell that ‘old building’ smell of aged wood and years of memories. It’s like coming home. Seeing the faces I do every Sunday, all of us with at least one common interest.

I’ll be honest, as with so many altruistic acts there is a certain amount of self gratification involved. Of course I volunteer because of my love of heritage, equally for my love of people and the opportunity to share such a special space with other like minded folk. But I also come here because I love this place. I want to inspire other people to love this place, so long after I’m gone there will be others who will value it and take care of it.

I met another volunteer (from another property) this week as a visitor who asked me ‘Don’t you find it frustrating?’ I got the impression he was struggling, maybe he’d come to Packwood to gain some perspective, it’s that kind of place. I don’t know if my answer was the 'party line', but it was from the heart.  I explained as I see it when you care about a place as deeply as we do it’s hard not to become attached to every decision made. It’s important to remember what we are there to do and why we do it. There are volunteers at Packwood who have been there for 20 or 30 years, they have seen change after change no doubt of their beloved property. Decision makers come and go and (believe it or not) we are in the enviable position of having a simpler role to play.

We are there to engage, to share and to protect. We do not have to monitor budgets, meet targets or navigate new processes. I’m not saying that we should go through this experience without offering positive or useful feedback if we see a way that something could be changed (we are people not droids!) but there is something to be said for enjoying the job that we are there to do and not focussing too heavily on the things we can’t control.

Quite often we may not always have all the information, it’s kind of like government…everyone thinks the decisions they make are wrong/useless/Barry in the pub could do better (delete as appropriate!) but however much we like to think we have freedom in the press, and we all know it all, we don’t. If we let the ‘blue sky thinking’ of others in an office cloud the experience we have, today, in our beautiful properties we are the ones who miss out. If we let frustration tarnish our enjoyment of these spaces, if we are resistant to change then we cannot do the job we are there to do as well as we are capable of doing it.

This isn’t the blog I intended to write; that happens sometimes! I’d intended to tell you all about being in the Great Hall (first time I’d done this room). I was going to tell you about learning about an artist ‘lay’; the mannequin that would be dressed in the same dress of whoever was being painted so the painter could do the detailed dress bits without a sitter getting fidgety! Or I could have told you about how the balcony balustrade for the minstrels gallery was made from the hay rack previously used for feeding cattle in the barn the great hall used to be!? In fact I’m almost positive I would have told you how the oriel window chosen by Baron Ash was inspired by the one he’d seen at Hampton Court Palace.  

But one has to be welcoming of change, so here is what is; as opposed to what I thought would be.

And for those who would have preferred a detailed account of the Great Hall, get yourself to Packwood and see it for yourself, here’s a few pictures to inspire you…

Why the Baron Ash story?

Hello glorious Positively Packwood readers. My baby brother got married last Saturday and what an incredible day it was so needless to say with the lead up to that and all the emotional and practical energy that was required I haven’t had a huge amount of time for writing. There is also a lot of ‘back line’ work going on at the moment with future blogs being planned and the logistics of this set up.

I was however (of course) at Packwood on Sunday, feeling slightly tired and emotional admittedly! I was meant to be doing a shorter day (Tea Relief – and who isn't relieved by tea!?) but I ended up staying on until after 5 pm – looks like I’ll have my 50 hours volunteering by the end of this month!

This week I was pleased to be covering Queen Margaret’s bedroom again (a favourite) and the Ireton Bedroom – the room with our fantastically ostentations Deco en-suite bathroom, with our famous antique Delft tiling. The Ireton bedroom also gives the opportunity to talk about some of the house’s earlier history as it is named for General Henry Ireton who it is believed slept in this room before the battle of Edgehill in 1642. Both the panelling and the bed are Jacobean and this week I was asked several times about the secret door…which I’d never spotted before and had to look up in the oracle!? In my defence…it’s very dark in there!? Not really an excuse haha I rather like that Packwood still holds some surprises for me!

Why the Baron Ash Story?

I thought I’d take the opportunity to also explain a question that we get asked a lot at Packwood. Why focus on its most recent owner and most recent history when the property itself dates back so much further?

The answer to this is two fold.

1. On the one hand we don’t…but it depends who you talk to! If you go on the tour of the property (outside) our guides will take you through all the changes to the house from it’s beginnings as a timber framed house of the late 16^th Century through the additions made by John Fetherston in 1670 to the more modern additions made by Baron Ash in the 1920’s and 30’s. They talk extensively about the Fetherston family who owned the property as yeoman farmers for over 200 years. Also certain rooms that remain mostly unchanged like the Ireton give more opportunity to talk about the house’s earlier history. Obviously I appreciate that those with mobility issues may miss out on both of these opportunities.
2. Part of the agreement the Trust made with Baron Ash when he gave Packwood to us in 1941 in memory of his parents was the ‘Memorandum of Wishes’ which dictates that the rooms are to stay as he had arranged them. It is also the reason why we have fresh flowers arranged in every room, every day. It is a credit to the Trust that we continue to display his home as he wanted it displayed ‘not the house he lived in but the house he felt should be viewed by visitors’.

You can see that this gives Packwood a unique quality – you are viewing a man’s home and in fact arguably his life’s greatest achievement in restoring this medieval manor house to its full glory using a conservationist view, bringing parts of other buildings and collections together here at Packwood. His ‘stamp’ is all over this property from the ‘new additions’ of the long gallery and Great Hall to the rooms made ready for his ‘Royal Visitor’ in Queen Mary’s bedroom and the drawing room that contains her teacup and the chair she sat in. 

However it does mean that to make sense of the house, its collections and its architecture we have to tell you his story. He makes sense of Packwood as you are looking at it now, made every decision about what is here...and what isn't. Perhaps he knew that by asking this of the Trust and in knowing they would honour their agreement he had found, as a man who died with no offspring a way of preserving his story long after he had gone. I always say Packwood was his baby and like any proud child, it tells the story of its father.