Storytelling Sunday Three: Pick Your Precious

Storytelling Sunday Three? There is no excuse for not joining in with this one! Everyone can do it. Pick Your Precious is about celebrating the little things you love: those souvenirs, bits and pieces, things from your past you can't bear to throw out. You know, the special little something you have tucked away in a drawer or up on a shelf? Or the thing you love most in a room? Or the object you would save if you knew you had to leave the country? Your favourite things.

Ready to begin?

The Monkey's Bathrobe

Sooo..my story for this month. Now, let's see..

Well, for the past week we've been thinking about packing. We've been making lists and getting the suitcases down from the loft and counting pairs of socks, all for that boy of ours who is heading off for student life. And I hope that turns into a long and happy story he'll maybe tell you himself one day. There's another story in there, too, I think, about another Fresher, many years ago now, who had no idea then about what her Mum must have been feeling as her daughter loaded her bags into the little brown Nova and drove away. But that's not the story for today, either. My story for September - a quick one now I've got started - is about what that daughter found when she began to unpack at the end of her journey.

Oh, yes. I've picked my Precious and here it is:

a small blue bathrobe: sewn from towelling and monogrammed with the letter "M". That would be M for Munty, my illiterate but faithful monkey mascot. He would have been about three or four by then - a teenage present - and we were an inventive, storytelling family, always, so he had already had a rich and varied life by the time he packed his smoking jacket (which he worked as daywear) to keep me company in Halls. I was very glad to see his head appear when I opened my suitcase, but when I turned to the little "Don't Open This til you Get there" box, I was laughing out loud. For inside, wrapped in tissue paper and nestled beside the new mugs and the big jar of coffee, was a new outfit for Munty: made by my sister to exactly match the robe I had sewn for myself to take with me when I left home. she had gathered up the scraps and put it together and I'd known nothing about it.

Now, you know how it is: we could have got a bit sad and wondering-what-everyone-was-doing-at-home-ish at this point. But we were too pleased with the present. So Munty whipped off his Smoking Jacket and tried it on and I hung my robe on its peg and we sat back and waited to see who we might meet in our new student life.

New student life? Isn't that where we came in? I guess that means it's back to the packing here. I'll have to see what I can get into that suitcase when his back is turned. ..

Maybe you have a story for us today?

Write your post, introduce it as a Storytelling Sunday story and then come back and link us up. You won't regret it! Everyone meets someone new on Storytelling day You have a full week to add your story, and the rest of the month to come back and read your choice of the others. No big rush! Have a think, take your time. And then? Sit back and enjoy the rest.