The Happy Pod: Lost my ring, found some friends

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. For goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Odoo, providing tools for businesses across industries into one fully integrated platform. Whatever your business needs, Odoo is committed to providing it. Learn more at odoo.com. This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Holly Gibbs, and in this edition. It was the gauntlet of emotion, you know, loss, disappointment, frustration, anger, right through to kind of the magic part, and then, you know, really the joy of friend building. I not only got the ring back, but, you know, met these three lads. How one Irishman's lost wedding ring led to an international friendship. Also on this podcast, meet the grandmother who competed at Miss Great Britain. 71 is an age that can be tricky. Because Glamour Grandan is all about doing things, but if I can, anyone can. Plus, the reporter who saved a man from drowning. When we saw him floating away, we were sort of thinking, you know, please, can we get emergency services here first? And then when it became very clear that he wasn't able to get out and he was sinking very fast, there was no thinking involved. And. Watching puppies when they are sleeping and eating, it's a very simple way of delight. The live stream where you can watch puppies puppies to your heart's content. When Patrick Moore's wedding ring slipped off his finger while he was swimming with his daughters in a river in Italy, he was devastated. Patrick asked three local men if they could help him find it, but without success, and he left thinking he would never see it again. Unbeknown to Patrick, those three Italian men continued their quest to find his ring, and even went on an epic journey to return it to him in Ireland. The Happy Pod's Emilia Clarke has been speaking to Patrick about the day it all began, and the unexpected friendship forged by an act of kindness. My fingers shrink a little bit when they're cold, I think. So one of the girls grabbed my hand, it slipped, and before you know it, the ring slipped off with them. And it all happened in a split second. The ring is gone. What are you going to do? You can't really, you can't see the bottom at all. And it's, the ground is covered in moss and ferns. So you just realize straight away, I've lost it. Did you keep up any hope that you were going to find it again? Well, straight away, to be honest, no. I felt that it was a goner. My wife started talking to the three lads. I think she asked them for goggles and they didn't have them. They made a joke straight away about it being like the Lord of the Rings with the last golden ring, which irritated me. And all I wanted to do was get out of there and not talk to anyone and, you know, console myself with my own disappointment. But, you know, my wife Joanne, she had the wherewithal to exchange numbers with them. The guys said they'd come back to the swimming spot regularly and they said, oh, we'll look for it. Now, I didn't really think they'd actually go look for it, let alone find it. And then nine days later, we were in a different part of Tuscany in the south and I got a text message from my wife. I got a text message from my wife. I got a text message from a strange Italian phone number I didn't have saved on my phone with a picture of what looked like my ring. And the caption on the text said, hi, Schmeigel, look what we found. Immediately disbelief, frankly, shared it with my wife before, you know, the whole family's jumping up and down with excitement. They said quite quickly over text that they wanted to bring the ring back to me in Ireland, which, you know, raised my eyebrows. At the end of the day, they're strangers. I just figured I'd drive back up to wherever. They live in Italy. But later that evening, we ended up on video call with them and they explained the situation more to me. We had left them. They had met this nice Irish family. They said to each other, we're going to find the ring for him. It turned out they'd actually gone back to look a couple of different times, once with kayaks, another day with ropes to tie themselves off on the rock so that they could dive into the water where it was moving a bit faster. And that's ultimately where they found it. In the faster-moving water, they said they saw a glint of light when the ferns parted. They were really into the Lord of the Rings parallels. And we went along with that story just for the crack. And so they ended up coming to Ireland. We spent all of that day exploring the Wicklow Mountains just south of where I live in Dublin. We went wild river swimming, of course. We went to do that. Brought them for a sauna, a pint of Guinness, and a meal with the family in the house. They ended up renting a camper van to explore the country. And I sent them on a mystery tour where I dropped their itinerary the evening before the next day. And they were excited to go on that adventure. So we've been swapping messages as a group ever since, trading pictures, learning a bit about each other's lives, and making friends. But when the ring was found. certainly my middle daughter, who believes in magic, swears that it was some spell she cast over the whole situation to make it happen. So, you know, after I lost the ring, I was speaking to a few of my friends about it and, you know, sharing the loss. And, you know, their message, the same every time, was be thankful you lost your wedding ring in a mountain stream playing with your family and not on a night out with the lads, drunk and having to explain your misfortune the next day. As far as losing wedding rings go, it's a pretty good place and style to do it. It was just a little bit of magic, and all the ingredients were right for it. And, yeah, it was the gauntlet of emotion, you know, loss, disappointment, frustration, anger, acceptance, right through to kind of the magic part, which was the excitement. And then, you know, really the joy of friend building. I not only got the ring back, which I'm holding right now, but, you know, met these three lads who are bang on. They're renowned lads, and they never would have had an Irish friend, and frankly, I wouldn't have had an Italian friend, and now we do. How did you feel that Relative Strangers ended up putting in all of that effort to try and reunite you with your ring? Very humbled by it in some respects, I suppose. I'd also, you know, I had mentally written off that it was findable. I'm quite a practically minded person. My wife. You know, she's since told me many times since that I learned a lesson that day that sometimes you just have to ask for help, even if it's improbable. You never know, the universe can respond, and there is a bit of magic out there sometimes. I thought long and hard how I could repay them for their kindness. I didn't want to give them money. It didn't feel right. In the end, I don't know if it was the right call, but I bought them a silver bracelet, one for each of the three guys. And got it engraved with their name and their hobbit name. They all assumed a hobbit name and got it engraved with that as well. And they certainly seem to love that as a gift. And what's next for your friendship, do you think? I think for sure we will keep in touch. When, where and how we see each other next, unknown. You know, the lads live in Italy, we live in Ireland. But I'm certain more will come from this. Whether it's invitations to their weddings one day if they decide to get married. Or it's holidays in Italy or Ireland, we will certainly meet up again. That was Patrick Moore speaking to Emilia Clarke. A 71-year-old woman from Scotland has made history by becoming the oldest contestant at the Miss Great Britain beauty pageant. Anne-Marie Harper says she wants other women to see that getting older does not mean disappearing. I caught up with Anne, or Glamour Gran Anne, as she is affectionately known. And she began by telling me how it all started. Actually, it's my very first time when I'd done the Ayrshire beauty pageant. I hadn't done beauty pageants before. I've always been in the beauty business. And I've always sort of worked towards helping people to do their makeup. Helping people to look good and feel good. And when I was asked would I like to go for an interview, I thought, I don't really know if I could. And the person that, it was Kay, who's actually my Ayrshire director for Miss Great Britain Ayrshire. Who said, just come for a coffee, we'll have a talk. I'm a great believer to keep everything. Somebody offers you an amazing opportunity, we take it. And when I was sitting having coffee with Kay, quite a few people in there went, oh, it's Glamour Gran Anne. Glamour Gran Anne, hello. And I thought, this is me, I'm going to do this. And after that, it was just, wow. What did your family say when you said you were going to do it? My family said, go for it, mum, yes, you can do it. My family's a great boost for me because sometimes when I'm not, you know, feeling that good, they'll say, come on, mother, you're a, you're a, you're a powerful lady. you can show them and you know in the most positive way it's it's true it's amazing what we can do when we've got people believing in us and sometimes you know only takes one wee person to believe in you to make you realize that you know i can do this and what if i fail so what if you fail glamour grandin's failed a million times but i just keep getting back up and you know and that's that's really what it's what's in my heart and you made history by competing at miss great britain at 71 tell me about that 71 is an age that can be tricky because glamour grandin is all about doing things and pushing herself forward ice skating skiing and i mean i really i push myself to do everything i don't just jump on a ski rink and i don't just jump on an ice skating rink i go for lessons of course but if i can anyone can and that's what i want to get out there i do a lot of motivational talking on stages etc and that's my happiness when i'm out there sharing with other people that they can do it and it's a power of example i can't sit in a corner and not do things i've got to be seen doing it's all about believing in yourself power and it's wonderful so at the time i'm speaking to you only competed a few days ago didn't you how did it go oh listen it was absolutely beyond anybody's wildest dreams and again i'll say anybody could have done what i done but i'm a there i decided i'm going to do this 10 times better than i've ever done anything before because it's a it's a book of red grant cardone and that's what it's all about if you're going to do something it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from push it and do it 10 times better and i did and i really loved every single solitary second of it and i didn't win which is fine however i did win a big award i won the impact over image award and that's bigger to me than anything in this world because it's going to help me further be up there and helping other people to say this is me just a down-to-earth woman who has shown herself and others that we can do this well congratulations on your award what feedback did you have when you competed at miss great britain i can't even start to tell you it's been absolutely amazing and i'm so happy to be a part of this and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much to all the people who have supported us and i just want to say thank you so much to all the people who have supported us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank you so much for all the support you've given us and i just want to say thank it could just be as much as getting out your bed that day or sitting up in your bed or even going to the door to open the door you know just to look out at the sunshine that was glamour gran anne As journalists, we try very hard not to become the story. However, in Australia, one reporter ended up saving a man's life while covering floods in Brisbane. ABC reporter Will Murray pulled a man from a sinking car after the driver accidentally drove into the flood. He's been speaking to the BBC's Lewis Vaughan-Jones. We went up to an area called Moreton Bay, which is a couple of hours north of Brisbane, Because we heard there was big storms coming. There was a heap of rain in the morning. We set up at a park that looked like it had floodwaters over it. There was a road running through. And all of a sudden a sort of big four-wheel drive comes roaring behind us and straight into the water. And we saw how deep it was. We'd been there filming. So we saw that it was right up to the top of, you know, the road signs. And so when he started driving in, we thought, oh, no, he's going to get into trouble very, very quickly. So sort of ran towards the edge and kept filming until we realised he was in real trouble. Within a few seconds, he started floating and then drifting downstream and then a few seconds later he started to sink again and I said to my camera operator, never mind the camera, put that down, come give me a hand, get on the phone to the AMBOs and I'll jump in and see if we can get him out. Thankfully there was another man there who gave me a hand And I'm very, very appreciative of him because without him, we wouldn't have got him out. You're in your shirt, is it? Your work shirt that you've just been doing your live broadcast from. And you just thought, right, jacket off and in I go. Was that it? Yeah, exactly that. And I was wearing some big, heavy RM Williams boots that we often wear here in Australia. and managed to get them off, but not my kind of woolen pants and suit shirt which was sort of dragging me down as we tried to make our way to the car. But just, yeah, it was. I mean, I can speak as I spent a good period of my career on the road as a reporter as well, and there's that instinct in you to not get involved and stay objective and not become the story, but also clearly when you're one of the few people there can actually help. Did you have a second thought or did you just go straight in? You know, if I had watched a man drown, I wouldn't, you know, it would be difficult to recover from. So better that you jump in and give it a crack. I'll live with the consequences of that. And what did you, when you must have spoken to him afterwards, what was he saying? Oh, he was extremely relieved. We gave him a big hug. I think there was a few scenes of us hugging both in the water and then when we got out. He just said he didn't see it. You know, he couldn't tell how deep the water was. Yeah, he was terrified, rightfully so. But just so thankful that he's out. That was Will Murray speaking to Lewis Vaughan-Jones. Coming up on The Happy Pod. In the state of Mexico, they relied on just a few climate data. And thanks to our system, we started giving them fire spread simulations. And thanks to that, they reduced the mortality rate to zero. The fire controlling app that started off as a school project. Sometimes we all need an extra help in hand, especially with a tricky business problem you've been putting off. Claude is an AI for just that. It's the collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. And Claude isn't just for quick questions. Handed a whole task like turning a folder of scattered notes into a report and it does the work and hands back something finished that you can open and edit. Claude can now draft a doc or deck right in front of you and Claude design now lives right inside Claude describe the website or prototype you're picturing attach your design system and it comes back in your own design language ready to edit right on the canvas it works with your files and the tools you already use like gmail and slack and whether you're debugging code at midnight building a financial model or strategizing your next business move Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter for problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai slash solve. That's claude.ai slash solve. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. claude.ai slash solve. Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free range self-directed investing, or perhaps you pick up a few farm fresh trades while you peruse. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. That's Full Service Wealth Management. Mix, match and change your mind whenever you want. Because at Schwab, you can invest your way. No matter your goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. You're listening to The Happy Pod. If you're a regular gym goer, you're in with a chance of becoming a world champion. World Athletics are holding their first ever World Treadmill Championship. All you have to do is run five kilometres on the treadmill and your time is logged on the Global Virtual Leaderboard. The BBC's Sarah Dawkins has been speaking to some of those giving it a go. Really like exhilarating. I feel like we're all in it together even though we're focused on ourselves. We're pushing each other. It's so good. The shouting, everyone, The music, it's all buzzing. It's great. These runners in Southampton are treading new ground and taking part in the first ever World Treadmill Championship. A brand new World Athletics event where people around the world can log five kilometres on a treadmill and compete for wildcard race entries and a prize pool of $100,000. 28, 34. It's called RunX, pitching everyday runners against the world's best, including the likes of British marathon runner Charlotte Perdue. I think it's good to get people into running, 5k is obviously not too far so people can have a have a shot at it there's no pressure there is the prospect of course of becoming the first ever world treadmill champion is that spurring you on tonight i mean i wish it was a marathon on the treadmill i think i'd have a better chance welcome to run x everybody runners have until january to sign up and post their time on the live leaderboard at their nearest run x site after that the top 25 in age categories from 18 to over 75 will be selected to represent their nation at the regionals the 10 best men and women in each category will then advance to the world final in italy next march there are currently only 20 countries taking part and the list of elite runners registered has not yet been disclosed but the event is free and world athletics president lord co says it's a chance to introduce a new audience to running i think this is a great opportunity it's across a whole range of age groups and it's really important that when we innovate we use technology that attracts more young people into our sport so after their 5k here's what the runners had to say it was really good fun we were all running at like a similar pace so it was like a mini competition between ourselves to like push ourselves to go a bit faster in peace with your time what was it 14 26 i think yeah solid so i get a bit competitive so i'm looking at people i'm like oh my gosh she's only three seconds ahead of me i can beat that treadmill running can sometimes divide opinion for some it's monotonous but for others it can be a matter of safety unfortunately so many women in the winter have to change their routines with running outside because they don't feel safe so by being able to run inside on a treadmill it can mean that you don't have to stop your training you can still be on a program you can still get your goals without stopping running through the winter whatever the motivation for taking part the message here is to have a go at becoming a world champion all you need is a pair of trainers that report was from sarah dawkins to helsinki in finland next where hundreds of thousands of people have been tuning in to watch this that is a litter of puppies who are only days old viewers from around the world have been tuning into puppy live a 24 7 live stream from the finnish public broadcaster yle peer you koshkanen is a science journalist at yle she's been speaking to the bbc's and soy and rob young i think there are many reasons people like to watch puppies and i think it's a good thing that they're watching the pen to live the finnish word meaning puppy live maybe watching puppies when they are sleeping and eating it's it's very simple way of delight on day it's very heartwarming way to brighten today in a world full of terrible news and when we watch puppy live stream we can see a canine family dog mother hilka and her six newborn puppies and the puppy live stream is a very popular way of live streaming and the puppies really are cute how many people roughly watch this live stream well last year there were millions million people watching live stream and how did you decide which dog family to choose did you have to audition a few well it's a very complicated process because they have to screen all those healthy issues and what kind of breeder there is and how responsible way he breeds dogs and well there are very many things we have i have to check and call very many breeders and check all those dog data and it's it's kind of puzzle i try to solve and of course not there any breeder wants to come to the live shows so that that takes eight weeks and the cameras are in the breeders home and etc peer you koshkin in we end in argentina where one man's school project has led to an app which helps identify and intercept wildfires before they become unmanageable franco rodriguez vial was inspired to do so after his family friends lost their home in a fire the bbc's mayra anubi reports 2026 is on track to have the highest number of ravaging wildfires ever spain the u.s australia angola and the u.s. so many places continue to grapple with this issue back in 2020 argentina experienced the most wildfires in the country's history more than 35 000 these fires had a profound effect on student franco rodriguez vial when i was 16 years old and i personally had a family friends who lost their homes to wildfires and i was in a technical high school and i wanted to do something so i started as a curricular project and i was in a technical high school and i wanted to do something with two friends ulises and joaquin and we started developing a system to fight this global problem so together with two friends he worked on a school project to develop an app called satellites on fire that can detect alert and monitor fires from early on and prevent them from getting bigger oh fantastic it's satellites on fire these guys are absolutely brilliant that's prince william founder of the earthshot prize which rewards solutions to environmental problems happily discovering that satellites on fire is a finalist for one of their prizes in just five years this app has already massively changed the way fires are tackled before by the time we got there there might already be 100 or 200 hectares burning for example nowadays we get there and perhaps there's an affected area of 30 by 30 meters for example 30 meters volunteer firefighter works in cordoba in argentina he says before using the satellites on fire app firefighters often relied on eyewitness reports and maps sometimes we were told there was a column of smoke and we didn't know where it was we'd plot one bearing three bearings on a map and roughly work out where the fire might be and only then would we start working out which road to take imagine all the time we lost doing that gustavo says this app allows him to both find and extinguish fires more quickly but it also helps firefighters to work towards preventing them in the first place with every spot that comes up we are building a kind of historical record of the areas where most alerts occur so we have the approximate areas where we may need to go more and do prevention work or preventive clearing so how does it work well lots of fires are already detected using satellite imagery pictures showing changes in temperature which are beamed down from 800 kilometers above the earth but franco rodriguez fiao told me that their eureka moment was using ai to combine all the possible sources of data into their app i remember when we were starting satellites on fire that we were speaking with lots of different people who work with fires one of them starting sharing his screen and he had 11 different systems weather data wildfire data lots of different information panels to tackle the fire more efficiently and we were like this can't be happening when you have a fire have seconds to act so we started looking to build an integral solution to that problem your system is different how does it work exactly so what we do is we process more than 13 satellites every five minutes with our ai algorithms that detect basically heat signatures in the field and this allows us to send whatsapp or sms alerts to the fire brigades so they receive a whatsapp message when with a link to google maps and they go and tackle the fire in time this enables them to put it out in the first minutes with just one fire truck instead of having thousands or hundreds of aircrafts and firefighters go over the fire when one is catastrophic but to really get to help and save people's lives communities and biodiversity now can you give me an example of the impact you've seen start since you started doing this yes for example in the state of mexico they relied on just a few climate data to tackle the fire but they didn't have enough information to know where the fire was spreading so that that's why they kept losing forest ranger lives on the fires because they got trapped in them and thanks to our system we started giving them fire spread simulations uh showing them how the fire was going to to evolve and thanks to that they reduced the mortality rate to zero franco rodriguez vial ending that report by myra anubi for more on that story just search for people fixing the world wherever you get your bbc podcasts and that's all from the happy pod for now we'd love to hear from you as ever the address is global podcast at bbc.co.uk the editor of this edition is karen martin i'm holly gibbs until next time goodbye