The Lady of the Ring watches the New Year's Eve fireworks on her fortieth birthday

She had buried the jewels in her backyard, and she had dropped the jewels into the sea, and with that she hoped never to see those pesky jewels again. No necklaces, bracelets or earrings would adorn her body any more. Her days of being trapped at home with the ring were behind her, and after a while even her friends stopped asking what had happened to it. When she visited other women in their homes and saw their rings, she felt a little sad for them. "Poor little darlings," she thought to herself, "So much work ahead for them, so much ring work to be done, so many jewels to put away every night and take out every morning. All that hateful polishing to be done."

But sometimes, very rarely, when the moon was just right, and the tides were big, and the finches hopped onto her windowsills of fantasy, she would miss the jewels. And missing jewels, dear reader, is an extraordinarily heartbreaking feeling, especially when you know that no matter how far you dig, or how deep you dive, you will never find them all again.

But she was a clever lady, this ringless lady, and she knew what to do to relieve the aching sadness of an empty jewellery box. She looked up.

"I almost forgot," she whispered to herself, "to look up."