lost and found

Yesterday, as I was weeding in the middle of the turning circle, I suddenly noticed a glint of something bright in the gravel by my right knee.  It was a gold butterfly clip from an earring for pierced ears.  I pulled my gloves off, put my hand up to my right ear, and felt my ex-office pearl stud where it should have been on my earlobe, clip snugly against the back of my ear.  Left hand, left ear, nothing.  A blank.

I peered hopefully at the gravel, since if the clip had only just fallen off the post with the pearl on it might not be too far away.  A moonstone stud once fell out when we were visiting the Marks Hall Arboretum and the Systems Administrator managed to find it by retracing our exact path and looking at the grass very, very carefully.  I was delighted to get it back since I was particularly fond of the moonstone earrings, and the SA was very relieved to find it because it was my birthday, and losing the earring would have cast a pall over the proceedings even if I'd tried not to make a fuss.

Maybe moonstones show up better in grass, or perhaps the SA is better at looking for things.  Looking for a lost pearl in ten millimetre gravel turned out to be a thankless task.  I couldn't see the earring anywhere along the stretch of the drive where I'd been working when I found the backing clip.  It occurred to me that I might have scooped the earring up along with the dead leaves and bits of sheep sorrel I'd been collecting in my bucket, so I took everything out of the bucket, piled it in a heap on the gravel, and put it back in the bucket piece by piece.  No pearl.  Ah well.  I wore the old office earrings for gardening because they had corrosion proof gold posts and so were less likely to work loose and drop out than silver ones, and because I regarded them in the same light as my old office shirts, of no sentimental value.  Even so I would still rather not not lose a perfectly good pearl stud.  I might still find it, but I wasn't holding out much hope, and it soon wouldn't be in very good condition if I did, sculling around in the gravel.

Today, as I was in the downstairs loo, I saw a pale, round shape lying next to the base of the lavatory.  My lost pearl.  How extremely fortunate that I had put the odd one and the stray clip away in a little box, instead of chucking them out in a temper.  The set is now reunited in the pot where I keep all my stud earrings.  But what is the chance that, after the post fell out of my ear in the downstairs loo, of the clip managing to stay stuck to my sweaty little head until I had got all the way outside, before falling off in a place where I actually saw it?