Storytelling Sunday Two: The Words The Pictures

First Sunday in the month? Then it has to be Storytelling Sunday! Let's dive right in;

L is for Life Lessons and Lentils

It's not often I take a picture especially for Storytelling Sunday. Usually I'm pulling one from the past. But for today I had nothing quite right. I needed lentils. 

Does anyone actually need lentils? they're saying round here. Well, I like them. Especially in soup. And (almost) every time I reach for the jar, I think about the first time I tried to cook them. The time I turned to lentils in my hour of need.

It was round this time of year. Let's call it late September. But dark, gloomy, classrooms with the lights on and nature tables loaded with Autumn. I was nine and I was hungry. Nothing new there: most nine year olds are hungry; but, after a summer of my Mum's cooking, the miserable old problem of school dinners was pressing on my mind.

Our school dinners were loathsome. School itself, I liked. The food? It still makes me shudder to think of it.No packed lunches allowed, no snacks from home: it was basically blackmail. They offered it up, we refused to eat it and everyone went hungry. Tapioca, semolina, wartime rations for 70's kids who dreamed of fish fingers and Angel Delight. Oh, yes. We were hungry.

And on that day, I cracked. I'd like to say that my plan came to me in a dream; but actually it arrived in a supermarket carrier bag full of dried pulses. We'd all been asked to bring stuff for a craft project. A stick on fantasy of peas and rice. Mmm..peas and rice..real food. I knew what I had to do.

It was easy. Mum did it all the time. She took the dried stuff. She boiled it up and an hour or two later we all had lunch. An hour or two? I still had time! we hadn't even done Science yet. I would take my raw ingredients, I decided, and prepare a delicious feast. My picture would be light on lentils, but my belly would be full. I needed to work fast. I needed to plan. But I was a Girl Guide, I knew what I was doing. I waited for breaktime, until the teacher had slipped out for a coffee (I knew there were biscuits in that staffroom and I was bitter, but I wasn't broken)..I carefully, quietly took an empty glass coffee jar from the store cupboard. I filled it with hot water from the tap, I poured in my lentils, screwed on the lid and set it gently in my locker. Now all I had to do was sit back and wait. At lunchtime my soup would be ready. I'd feast, I'd eat my fill and I might even have enough to go round. Sian's soup kitchen would be in business.

Well, you know what happened, of course. My coffee jar full of lukewarm water and dried lentils was still a coffee jar of lukewarm water and dried  lentils at lunchtime. Though by going home time it had changed - to a coffee jar full of cold water and dried lentils. I got into my mum's car and asked her if she had any toast and jam.

I was still happy I'd tried. It might have worked. I might have found fame as a world class lentil handler. These days I do a lot of slow cooking. I have cracked the Crock Pot. And my picture making has improved too. In fact I would go so far as to say - same situation today? you know what? I'd choose sticking over soup making. And that's what makes it, as they say,  a funny old life..

And that's my story for today. I can't wait to see who else has one to share.  If you have one  we'd love to hear from you! A photo and a few words (or maybe the few words without the photo?) or something a bit longer. I love them all! Create your  Storytelling Sunday post with an introduction (so your readers know what's going on) and a link back here and then come on over. The linky stays open all week, so if your story isn't ready for Sunday - no worries! And if you add a link - then, please, do say hello to some other storytellers. We can't tell stories on our own, we need an audience. So.. ready, steady, story..