This is why I like Charity shops.

So I've got this bag, right. I needed a bag but didn't have much money so I did the usual and scoured some charity shops. So, I found this bag. It was kind of cumbersome, made of floral carpet, pretty ugly actually. But I like ugly things. Moustaches and pugs and burnt-down-buildings and old-men's-shoes and wallpaper from the sixties. So I bought it for a tenner and slung it over my shoulder and left, feeling chuffed.

On the way home I stopped at the market and bought tomatoes and courgettes and lettuce and bananas and oranges, and lychees for a special treat, because they had one of those special spiky neon signs with a cheap price on you always see at greengrocers. I love those little signs. I put them all into my new bag. Fruit and veg are heavy, especially when you carry them in those flimsy plastic bags that might as well be made out of spiders webs for all the use they are. The ones whose handles turn into some kind of dental floss and cut into your fingers like cheese wire. So I was glad to have a bag to put them in. They'd be heavy, but at least my fingers wouldn't go all stripy red-and-white and sore.

But they weren't heavy. It was like the bag was still empty. I had to look inside to make sure they hadn't fallen through a massive hold in the bottom that I'd somehow failed to notice in Oxfam. No; all my tasty fruits and veg were still there. Must be some kind of physics, I thought. Some kind of special bag that spreads the weight evenly (my science knowledge is clearly poor enough that I can fob myself off with such feeble explanations).

I wandered home, swinging my light-as-a-baby-hamster bag at my side. I was pretty happy. Not because of the bag, but because I was going to eat lychees with a cup of rooibos tea in front of Neighbours.

When I got down to the kitchen, I started to unpack my groceries. When I'd finished, I noticed there was still some stuff lying around at the bottom of the bag. A few pieces of chalk. A sticky spoon. Eurgh! An umbrella with a parrot's head handle. How did I not notice that? I kept rummaging, and found this weirdo letter from some kids named Jane and Michael Banks. Some cogs were slowly turning in my head. Then I pulled out a 5 foot long chimney brush and it all clicked. I knew whose bag this was.

Mary Poppins' actual carpet bag. I kid you not. You probably don't believe me but when was that ever the point of a story? Just stop giving me that cynical look, it makes your face ugly. I don't like all ugly things, you know.

So anyway, I was flipping out. I had Mary Poppin's bag. I started running round my house putting things inside it, just to test it out. Books and pans, a pot plant, the kettle. It was unbelievable. I didn't know what to do with myself, I was just too excited. Too excited to even eat my lychees. I could travel the world, I thought, with nothing but this bag. I could fit everything I owned inside it. I could empty my whole bookshelf into it, so that I'd never again be bored on a train. Every outfit, for every occasion. All my shoes. Reams of paper and pens and paint and ink; no landscape would go unpainted, should  I so desire. I'd always have my camera when I needed it. I could keep enough food in it to last me for years, and a little gas stove, and kitchen utensils. A tent, and a pillow and a duvet so that I could sleep anywhere. A fold-up bicycle for easy transport. A fold-up chair. A fold-up table. A boom-box! No, a Gramophone! A tent, a length of rope, a lantern. Fairy lights. Extension cables. A laptop. A projector! I could turn any wall into a cinema screen, anywhere in the world. I could charge people to watch films in caves and on cliff sides. I could charge people to watch my magic show, where I pulled live doves and bunches of flowers and Gramophones and bicycles from my little carpet bag.

And that is what I did. I left, and now travel the world with my magic bag. I make enough money in one place, selling things from my bag, or performing, or playing films with my projector. Then I move on. Sitting on boats and trains and at the back of buses, bag at my feet, taking lychees from a brown paper packet and peeling them, carefully. Their tough red skin revealing hidden gems of translucence and light; their sweet juice dripping down my chin.