Engaged with the Future

I have found my Gran's engagement ring! Possibly you have no idea how much this means to me. But I am sitting here with a big grin on my face, and Gran's ring safely on my finger, nestling snugly between my wedding ring and own engagement ring so it will never get lost again.

I 'inherited' Gran's engagement ring many years ago. Not as an official legacy, you understand - a lot of hoo-ha has happened in my Dad's side of the family because of their reluctance to make proper Wills and the fact the middle brother goes funny with a full moon, but I won't go into it all. Suffice to say, I have never and will never become rich due to an inheritance. No, the ring was rescued by my Mum when she was helping clear out Gran's house following her death in 1986 (the same year Chris was born). And then she passed it on to me about 10 years later.

'You are the oldest grand-child,' she said. 'And I think this should belong to you.'

Although it's a very attractive ring - three diamonds on a gold band - it is too big for me to wear safely without it slipping off. I took it to a jeweller to see about having it made smaller but the jeweller wasn't keen to undertake the task.

'It's a lovely ring,' he said. 'But where your Gran has worn it for 50 odd years, the gold has thinned. I can't guarantee it surviving having a bit cut out of it and being re-joined.'

He suggested I wear it with one of those plastic ring cuffs, to make it artificially smaller.

And so it stayed in its box. Every now and then I'd take it out and let it twinkle in the sun. I thought of having the diamonds made into a different piece of jewellery, but this didn't seem right. Gran had worn this ring all her marriage; it was part of her. It had absorbed her energy and her being. I couldn't dismember it.

On my wedding day, the ring came with me, tucked into my pink fluffy feather hand bag. It went back into its box on the dressing table. And then I put it away for safe-keeping. And I forgot where.

So for the last year I have been turning the house upside-down trying to find it. I've rooted around the edges of carpets, I've turned out cupboards and drawers, I've looked in all those places where you think you might put a precious thing for safe-keeping. But no luck. I even resorted to asking Saint Anthony to help me find it.

And where did I find it? In the bloomin' attic of course!! Safely in its box, in another box filled with wedding day memories like confetti and champagne corks, an Order of Service and a bottle of bubbles.I was so excited when I found it! Andy thought I'd gone quite mad.

It is a sign, the finding of this ring in the attic that I have been clearing out. I found it on my Dad's birthday. On the same day Andy and I found our new house and decided to put our current house up for sale.

My Gran and Dad are looking after us. Andy and I are now engaged with the next part of our future! Hurrah!!