With this ring…

I am linking to Sian for another Story Telling Sunday. Don’t the weeks come around quickly?

My story this week is a bit topical, it is about my wedding ring.
William seemed to have a little difficulty getting the ring on to Catherine’s finger didn’t he?
A similar thing happened to me, only it was quite a few years after our wedding and it was the other way about, I couldn’t get my ring off!
My poor hands and fingers decided to swell. So much so that I had to have my engagement ring cut off. It was 18ct gold, so very thin to start with, it began to cut into my finger.
My wedding ring began to get tight but I really didn’t want that cut off so I put up with it for ages. One day my friend saw me turning it to try to make it more comfortable, she told me about a goldsmith in the West Country, near to Bristol, who made jewellery from old gold.
Maybe I could have my ring cut off and a new one made from it?
Apparently you could take your old broken jewellery to them and they would make you a new piece of jewellery from your old gold.
We drove across to Bristol to investigate. I had a little packet of old and broken jewellery with me, not knowing if it was good enough or indeed enough to do anything with.
The goldsmith in the craft centre couldn’t have been kinder or more helpful, we decided to go ahead, he cut my wedding ring off and we added it to the little pile.
We had enough gold to make me a new wedding ring and some lovely new earrings. I was thrilled. As jewellery designing is not one of my skills we left it to them to help us. For the ring they suggested a simple twist which was one of their own designs, and they earrings would be a couple of cm long narrow at the top getting wider at the base with a hammered design (clear as mud to me). Although they drew the pattern of the ring and the shape they proposed for the earrings, really I had no real idea what it would be like. It sounded wonderful, the only thing I was concerned about was, would the ring fit!

A few weeks later we drove down to The Clevedon Craft Centre near Bristol to collect my new wedding ring.
With this ring

And these earrings

So what’s so exciting/interesting about that story?

The gold that is in my ring and earrings came from my original wedding ring, my engagement ring, my mothers wedding and engagement rings, my grandmothers wedding ring and my mother-in-laws engagement ring.
I am wearing something of probably insignificant monetary value but the family history in my simple ring is priceless.

There are more stories here