By: Blonde Two

I am often asked (because I wear it around my neck) if the object pictured here is a vertebrae. I am glad that it isn’t because that would feel a tad macabre. It is a dead thing though, it is a dead shellfish thing, from a New Zealand beach. The Coromandel Peninsula to be more precise, which is one of my favourite places in the world to visit.

Ever since my sister sent it to me (at least ten years ago) it has been my lucky charm. It used to be as essential a part of walk preparation as my boots or waterproofs (in fact I believe that I have arrived on Dartmoor with my charm, but without my coat). I haven’t worn it as much in the last couple of years, but when I found it in the drawer on Sunday, I decided to conduct an empirical piece of Blonde research into the success of shells as a lucky charms.

How to conduct my research was an interesting question. I considered but rejected: a) Wearing the charm and jumping off a rock (not too tall, I don’t like heights). b) Not wearing the charm and jumping off the same rock. (If charms don’t work, I think I may have got these two in the wrong chronological order.)

I did like the idea of: c) Not wearing the charm and not jumping off the ‘not too tall’ rock. So I did (or didn’t!) This however didn’t make for much evidence for my research, so I considered a few historical events. Here is what I found out:

a) I was wearing my charm when I first cooked Blonde One a bacon sandwich. (LUCKY – she gave me the job of being Blonde Two).
b) I was wearing my charm when I took my first night navigation assessment. (NOT LUCKY – I failed, LUCKY – Blonde One fell in the bog instead of me.)
c) I was wearing my charm when I broke my ankle on Dartmoor. (NOT LUCKY – it hurt a lot, LUCKY – a big red Devon Air Ambulance helicopter came to rescue me.)
d) I was wearing my charm most of the year that I was Ten Tors Manager. (LUCKY – two very successful teams, NOT LUCKY – I got made redundant anyway.)
e) I was NOT wearing my charm when I failed the Dartmoor Rescue selection. (NOT LUCKY – didn’t like failing. If I try again I will wear it.)
f) I was wearing my charm at a recent important meeting. (LUCKY – the meeting went swimmingly and all parties left pleased. LUCKY – we Blondes didn’t leave swimmingly despite the amount of water on Dartmoor’s roads.)

I haven’t decided yet whether or not I am going to start regularly wearing my lucky charm again. I would say that the evidence is inconclusive (do feel free to share more evidence), but maybe it would be wise … just in case!