PAINFUL!! Thanks, Ceeece, for this material!

It had seemed a romantic and highly original way to propose to the love of your life with a £6,000 diamond ring. Lefkos Hajji, 28, wanted to make his engagement one his girlfriend would never forget, only to have his dreams cruelly snatched from his grasp by a gust of wind.

Rather than simply dropping to one knee before Leanne, 26, he told a florist to put her engagement ring in a silver helium balloon. But no sooner had he left the shop when his plans backfired spectacularly and the balloons blew away - taking the ring with them.

Keeping his prize in sight, Mr Hajji, from Hackney, London, pursued the balloons for two hours in his car across London before giving them up as lost. He told the Sun newspaper: "I couldn't believe it. I just watched as it went further and further into the air.

"I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me. I though I would give Leanne a pin so I could literally pop the question."

While Mr Hajji hopes the ring will still turn up, his girlfriend, as he suspected, was apparently less than impressed. Florist Helen Savva, of Cockfosters, London, told the newspaper: "I thought he was taking a risk. I said, 'I hope you hold onto it'."