THE power of social media was this week credited with making it a happy New Year for one Wellington shop owner when an item which had gone missing from the shelves was anonymously returned.

A £35 ‘Mother Earth’ statue disappeared from Nurtured by Nature shortly before Christmas and shop owner Stacy Faulkner posted a message on social media suggesting a customer had forgotten to pay for it.

Then, over the New Year weekend the item was mysteriously left on the shop’s doorstep in South Street with a note reading: “She is beautiful. I am very sorry.”

Stacy said: “We were really surprised. It was the power of social media which worked.

“It was just taped up in a black bag and we thought somebody had just dumped stuff there, and then curiosity got the better of me and I picked it up and looked inside.

“It was literally a happy New Year for us.”

The story then had an even happier ending when one of Stacy’s regular customers heard what had happened and went to the shop specifically to buy the returned ‘Mother Earth’ in order to ‘give it a home and look after it’.

The green colour figurine shows ‘Mother Earth’ resting cross-legged with bronze ornate arms embracing her pregnant belly, which is depicted as a globe.

Her hair, composed of dense leaves, falls gently over her shoulders and is dotted with scattered flowers and butterflies.