My precious
Yesterday, Mr. Bsag lost his wedding ring. He was working on the allotment and took the ring off because it was rubbing his finger when he was using the spade. Like the big idiot he is sometimes, he put the ring in the top pocket of his overalls which a) doesn’t fasten closed, and b) has a hole in the bottom, though to be fair, he didn’t know about b) until it was too late. The inevitable happened, and the ring must have dropped out of his pocket while he was spreading the huge load of horse manure we had delivered on to the beds. We went up to look for it, but it could be under several trailer loads of muck by now, so it was a fairly hopeless search.
I was surprised how upset I was by the loss of his ring. It’s only a piece of metal after all, and the fact that he doesn’t now have it in his possession or on his finger makes no difference to our relationship. But it still upset me. Our rings weren’t just picked off the trays of a jewellery shop, but were made to our own design by a lovely craftsman jeweller based in Birmingham. They weren’t expensive, but they were special and unique to us. At our wedding, I carried my grandmother’s wedding ring as my ‘something old’, and it had worn very thin over the years of her marriage. I wanted our rings to wear thin too, but now only mine will do so, and that makes me sad.
In folk tales and ballads, when this kind of thing happens, the years pass and the man catches a huge fish at sea, which he gets his servants to cook at a great feast. The woman then cuts open the belly of the fish, only to find the lost ring shining inside. Our allotment is a bit far from the sea for that, but my faith in the narrative imperative is such that I’m fairly confident that — some years from now — we’ll cut open a particularly prize specimen of a potato, which we have grown on our allotment, only to find the lost ring embedded in the flesh.
That, or we’ll have to make friends with someone who has a metal detector, but it doesn’t have quite the same ballady feel about it.
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I lost my wedding ring last week and was also surprised by how upset I felt, I kept noticing its absence. For a little while afterwards though it almost felt like me and my wife weren't married and we were dating again. I found it again a few days ago but I think loosing it has brought us closer.
by Nicholas Johnson @ 28/03/2008 7:20 pm • Permalink •
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Oh Bsag, how wonderfully old fashioned you are, it is a treat to an old soul to hear of one so young still valuing what the non-romantics see as an anachronistic symbol of love.
You must know someone at your university with a metal detector, nil desperandum and all that, failing that, give Tony Robinson a ring....................
by Jonathan Briggs @ 28/03/2008 9:16 pm • Permalink •
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The most important thing, you've got to make sure you keep the same allotment until you do cut open that potato!
by Clair @ 28/03/2008 10:01 pm • Permalink •
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Or stake out the local pawn shop lest a rabbit carrying a bag labelled "SWAG" makes an appearance..........
by Jonathan Briggs @ 29/03/2008 10:26 am • Permalink •
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Nicholas Johnson: You were lucky you found it again! I hope we find Mr. Bsag's ring.
Jonathan Briggs: "failing that, give Tony Robinson a ring". Oh Jonathan, that was in very poor taste, given the subject
Yes, I am an soppy old thing sometimes - just don't tell anyone.
Clair: Absolutely!
by bsag @ 30/03/2008 1:28 pm • Permalink •
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Metal detectors are quite cheap: you can buy perfectly serviceable ones from larger toyshops. They are also pretty easy to build - only a few quid in parts - plans are no doubt available on the interweb.
Fairy tales do happen. True story: my grandmother lost her ring in the sea. She was very upset - her husband had died years before and it was one of the few reminders she had of him.
Later that week she bought a fish from a fisherman on the pier. When she got around to preparing it for supper, she found her ring inside it.
Jeff
by Jeff - a random visitor by way of Google @ 01/04/2008 9:22 am • Permalink •
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Bsag, you could try divining for it with a freshly cut forked hazel stick? You never know..
by Jerry @ 05/04/2008 4:26 pm • Permalink •
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Jeff: That's useful to know. I'm amazed by your grandmother's story (if true!). But folk tale/song writers have to get their material from somewhere...
Jerry: Yes, you never know, but I think I'll stick with a metal detector
by bsag @ 06/04/2008 5:41 pm • Permalink •
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I reckon building your own metal detector together to find it sounds like a nice story in its own right. Although anyone you tell it to will know what a "soppy old thing" you are!
by Andrew @ 27/04/2008 1:12 pm • Permalink •
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