Storytelling Sunday Three: Pick Your Precious

.It's the first Sunday of 2013 and that means it's time for January's edition of Storytelling Sunday. This year we are celebrating our small stuff. Pick Your Precious asks you to choose something you love from around your house and tell us the story. Anything at all! At the end of the year you'll have a permanent record of some of your favourite things.

and so to my first precious of the year:

The Sewing Box

This one sits safely tucked away on a shelf in my wardrobe. It has travelled with me from house to house since I was five years old; and I last used it about two weeks ago.

Round about the time I started school, my Mum gave me a sewing kit. She made it herself from an old box covered in one of her dresses and filled with everything I might need. I remember pulling out the knitting needles first of all, and my Grandma volunteering to teach me. There was fabric, too: a piece of 1960's pastel paisley I thought was too nice to touch; and, over the years, bits and pieces came and went as I made use of my box. I sewed a piece of bright red cotton into a top to go dancing in when I was seventeen, and then my box was almost empty, so I filled it with my teenage collection of plastic: you know, a 1980's thing? By then my sewing kit was too big for my childhood box: it became - I guess you could call it- a time capsule of tat: my teenage treasures.

So, just before Christmas, The (Not So) Small One arrived home from town:- eyes sparkling, arms full of parcels - after a shopping trip with a friend. She had got everything she needed, she said, but she had run out of money right at the end, with the scarf shop in sight. You know the one? With the Indian scarves? and the jewellery? and the funny smell?

Oh. Yes. I knew the one. Because when I was fourteen I had come up to the city with a map, drawn by an adventurous friend who knew how to find this particular notorious emporium: down a dark alleyway, past the oldest pub in town, underneath a tattoo parlour..

It has moved now, I'm pleased to report, easier and safer to find,though  still with the same array of teenage delights.  So you didn't buy anything? I asked. No, she said sadly and turned to go and put her shopping away. Wait! I said, and I ran for my box. Inside, I knew, was a silver snake bangle I had bought from that shop when I was exactly the age she is now. I gave it to her, of course, and she liked it. Some things don't really change. 

I went looking for it again in her room yesterday, to take a photo; but know what? It wasn't there. She'd gone out wearing it. I'm thinking maybe I'd better see what else that box has to offer. If only I'd kept that red dancing top..

And that's my first Pick. Now, let's hear about yours! Some of you are already talking about a mini-album for the year and I think that would be perfect.Show us some pictures, tell us the story behind whatever you choose: it's all good. Write your post, with an introduction linking back to Storytelling Sunday (so your readers get the idea, the more the merrier!) and come link us up. I'm looking forward to reading about your treasures..

..More information can be found on the Storytelling Sunday page. And, don't forget, any story will be welcomed. Whatever you have in your head will be just fine: small or tall, we'll read them all.