A lost wedding ring has found its way back to its owner via a manure processing company, a fertiliser retailer and a metal detector enthusiast, local broadcaster RTV Utrecht reported on Thursday.

‘I was driving my car and looked at my hands on the wheel. And I suddenly realised my wedding ring wasn’t there,’ Iris van den Boom told the television channel.

Van den Boom, who is a journalist, said there were various places where she could have lost the ring, one of them being a riding school in Woerden where she had been conducting a number of interviews.

Six months after announcing her loss on Twitter, Van den Boom was contacted by  farmer and metal detector enthusiast André van Erkom who had found the ring on his land, some 46 kilometres away in Geldermalsen.

The land, it transpired, had been covered in horse manure from the Woerden riding school via a manure processing company in Rotterdam and a retailer in Kerkdriel.

‘I stepped into the field and there it was,’ he told the broadcaster. After looking on the internet for people who had lost a wedding ring saying ‘Ard 2005′ Van Erkom also found Van den Boom.

‘It was still covered in mud but I could see it was my ring straight away,’ Van den Boom said. ‘I noticed it’s a bit loose so it might be a good idea to make it a bit smaller.’