An English woman who lost her wedding ring in the garden almost four decades ago has just found it buried in the soil—just days before her 40th anniversary.
65-year-old Paula Walter lost the precious wedding band back in 1983 when she was playing catch with her son outside their home in Plymouth, Devon.
The ring flew off her finger as they were frolicking in the garden, and despite conducting a lengthy search of the grounds with a metal detector, it was never found.
Paula, who tied the knot with her now 73-year-old husband Joe on August 28th, 1980, was heartbroken by the disappearance of her cherished 18 carat gold band.
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“My house backs onto woodland and I thought possibly that the ring flew in there. I thought it was gone forever,” recalled Paula. “Over the years—whenever we’ve been in the garden or out there—I’ve always said ‘have a look for the ring,’ but we never found it.”
To her delight, however, the missing ring was finally rediscovered last month.
Paula’s lucky break came when she hired local landscaping company Man for All Seasons to clean up her garden a few days before her wedding anniversary.
“We had a gardening company come in and landscape our garden and I told them about the ring and the whole story,” says Paula.
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Although the yard had been dug up multiple times in the past, the gardeners struck gold.
“They called me out into the garden a while later saying they had a surprise for me and then handed me my wedding ring,” she exclaimed. “It was in the garden where I was standing and where I had been playing ball with my son all those years ago.
“I was so shocked, but incredibly grateful. It’s wonderful to have it back.”
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What a lovely story and how precious that ring is to her now. She hardly looks any different now that she did 40 years ago (lucky lady!)