Saturday morning and I’m so happy that Sarah said yes. I was pretty sure she would, but you never know till you ask!

Some months previously her best friend’s fiancée had proposed and had chosen a ring. Lovely as that idea would be, Sarah had hinted that were I ever to ask her, she’d rather choose herself.

So, off to Hatton Garden it was then. I’ve never been anywhere quite so bewildering in my life – the sheer number and range of shops there is amazing. Up and down we wandered, not knowing quite where to start. Then we finally braved our first shop. Sarah had been after gold; I wasn’t so sure; but we did agree we wanted something a little different and that didn’t stick out too much. The manager was very helpful – out came a range of rings, and Sarah tried several on before deciding that yes, platinum was very nice, thank you very much.

It took an hour or so more to traipse up and down looking at other rings, but none of them quite matched up. We did go into three other shops before finally settling back on the first shop (if not the first ring) that Sarah tried on. Honour having been served (it was more than she wanted me to spend but less than I was willing to spend) we did the necessary and went off for lunch whilst they resized it slightly. And hey presto, back to St Albans with a very sparkly ring and a very happy Richard and Sarah.