Two and a half years ago, Mary was doing some gardening at the retirement accommodation where she lives in Whangarei. Some time after weeding, gardening, and repotting a fern, she noticed her gold wedding ring of some forty years was missing.
Staff members at the time searched through the garden and fern, with no success.
As is often the case, the ring was given up as lost.
Recently on hearing about my recovery service, one of the staff members contacted me to see if there was any chance of finding it.
Mary was apparently sceptical about a recovery given the time that had elapsed though.
Her confidence was boosted when shortly after the enquiry, I successfully recovered a ring lost in a farm paddock that had been missing for an equivalent period of time.
I duly arrived at the accommodation and was met by Mary, who talked me through the loss.
Constantly assessing the different locations I was shown, I shifted them up and down my mental list in order of probability as we went.
After a few further questions, I had a good idea of the likely scenarios that might have led to this lost ring and got kitted up.
A quick reconnaissance sweep of the garden yielded only the usual decomposing nails, bits of brass and plumbing that are the usual background in urban searches.
Molesting the poor fern with the pinpointer was only met with silence from the probe. Cross that one off the list, which meant it wasn’t where it was supposed to be – they rarely are.
I returned to the car to get the ‘big guns’ out, time to get serious.
10 minutes later, in the lawn, a beautiful gold signal sounded in the headphones. I parted the grass and moss and after wiping the surface mud off, there was the shining edge of a ring.
It must have been lost while Mary was gardening then knelt or stepped on, into the soil surface. This would have prevented it from being found by the many searchers and almost certainly saved it from death-by-mower.
I left it there and tapped on the door of the unit.
When Mary came to the door, I simply said, « I’ve got something of yours ».
I let Mary pick it out of the soil where it had fallen two and a half years ago.
Had it not been for a caring staff member who took the initiative to contact me, it would still be lost.
Many rings lay in gardens, lost but not forgotten. Waiting for an experienced Ringfinder…
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