Lost: wedding ring

I know it's just stuff and you can't take it with you, but losing a wedding ring is quite a big deal. A bigger deal than say, losing a contact lens. The contact lens is probably more inconvenient, but easier on the heart strings.

It's been over a week now, so it has jumped categories from 'mislaid' to 'AWOL', although it won't be 'gone forever' until we get on a plane and leave Uganda. But while there is that glimmer of hope that it might still be under the sofa, I am still a little sad and feel somewhat under dressed without my special bit of bling.

It was always a question of "when" and not "if" I would lose it, however. I think I have lost every piece of jewellery that I have ever been given. A gold chain from my Dad when I was about 11; a ring from my best friend on my 21st birthday. I am a bit clumsy and forgetful (and not naturally tidy), but I don't do it deliberately, either. I have sort of accepted now that I am not a jewellery girl, and have made R swear never to buy me any no matter how special the occasion.

It was white gold, plain and very small. (I am not petite by any means, but my fingers are.) I remember choosing it in R's old school friend's swanky jewellery shop, trying on lots of different styles and feeling very excited about getting married. Hours into the marriage, my brand new ring made the skin underneath red and itchy, and so my habit of taking it off a lot was born. For the next 6 years I wore it most of the time, except when I came into contact with water whereupon it was consigned to strategically-placed shelves, i.e high ones, out of reach of little fingers.

Very early last Wednesday morning, I saw my ring on the bathroom shelf next to the toothpaste. I am pretty sure I put it on. Then there was breakfast and the usual morning mayhem. I got Emma's school bag ready and waited outside our gate for her lift to school. I put her in the car and kissed her goodbye. It's around this point I don't remember having the ring anymore, though I have no memory of taking it off. Since then I have searched high and low and - nothing.

The one thing that makes this whole thing a bit easier is that R lost his wedding ring a couple of years ago. He thinks he stuffed it with a napkin into a paper cup in Starbucks at Heathrow Airport. So we are one all.

I will definitely get another one (if it really is Gone Forever), as I am sick of men throwing themselves at me in the street under the illusion that I am available. Except this time, it'll be made of stainless steel.