Speaking as one whose late spouse suggested a piece of coal for an engagement ring.... said it was all carbon anyway....

I haven't got all his ashes now, but I find the thought of his big toe trying to catch up from the bit of Indian Ocean a small amount got put in earlier this year quite amusing. Not to mention the various other places he has been left. (My son Alex, in New Zealand would love to get him into the upper atmosphere by lobbing some into an active volcano - well he did say he never wanted to stop travelling). As it happens, a small amount of him went into the sea on the north side of the Cook Strait last month. here is plenty more left there, so he may end up exploring the Pacific.

Back to the point - anyone who has met me knows my fondness for the sparkly things in life. As it happens, when my husband (who couldn't see the point of getting excited about minerals stuck to bits of metal - bloody mining engineers) got himself blown up in a coal mine, I went and paid off on the layby I had at a local jewellers for some briolette cut diamond earrings - and wore them to his funeral. I had been asking him for years that he buy me diamond earrings.

It would be some sort of irony if I turned him into jewellery. The trouble is, there wouldn't be enough of him to make a decent stone now, so I guess we will just have to carry on and keep him travelling - which we think is what he would like! ;-)

Andrea