What’s on my keychain

I don’t think there’s a -phile suffixed word for it, but I absolutely love seeing people’s keys. I love to see their keyrings and how they arrange them, likewise with wallets, fridge magnets, stationery and such.

So here are my keys. Believe it or not, these are actually the minimised version of my original keys. I used to have loads of photo keyrings, which I now use as zip-pulls on bags, and I used to have a huge rope ball on there when Freya was first learning to pick them up, which made them super heavy as well, but she doesn’t need that now.

First, is my base keychain which I take around the house for un/locking the back door etc.

The most focal part of it is probably the Israel shape. It’s made from an actual Qassam rocket that was fired into Israel by terrorists. The Hebrew says Am Yisrael Hai, “The people of Israel live.”
The blue stone marks the location of Sderot, which suffers a fairly constant bombardment of rockets. When one is fired, residents have 10-15 seconds to get into a shelter before the rocket will hit the ground somewhere, which many wheelchair users are still unable to do.

Another thing I have on there is a little black-light torch. Probably not as useful as a normal torch would be, but it does help to highlight dropped things against other surfaces, and it charges up the glow-in-the-dark strip on Freya’s collar.

The only other things on the actual ring are the keys themselves. The ring is part of an Ad-Loop for my charity and has our web address, although at the time of writing the site is only visible to trustees due to waiting for our CIO number.

When I leave the house, I thread the above onto the following wire loop. I used to just have them all as one thing at home, but I realised I was being ridiculous.

The contents are:

1. Canine Partners keyring.
2. Custom medical tag that warns I have Ehlers-Danlos and will dislocate from normal medical procedures and positioning that might be performed on me while I’m unconscious. The reverse side warns that I’m allergic to penicillin.
3. Library cards for both the Hampshire libraries and the Southampton one. I don’t live near a Hampshire library but I can make use of ebooks by being a member.
4. Tesco clubcard, which I ALWAYS forget I have until after I’ve finished checking out.
5. USB stick just in case I need to show someone a file, although I don’t always remember to update it.
6. Trolley fob from the Aplastic Anaemia Trust, which is quite close to my heart because I have blood problems and AA was originally thought to be one of the possibilities.
7. A mini 4-colour Bic pen! I unclip it to write at meetings instead of carrying other pens around.