August’s birthstones are both green – perfect to match the landscape during Summer. The first is jade, this most ancient of semi-precious stones, available in a variety of colours when dyed and of course its natural colour, which is the palest of greens. Thought to bring the wearer luck, it is the Chinese stone for good fortune and makes a great birthday gift. The second birthstone is peridot. Its yellowy green is such an easy colour to wear whether you’re blonde, brunette, auburn or fighting the grey! As with most gems, its surrounded with myth and legend and has been...

Ruby – July’s birthstone This much-loved precious gemstone is one of the few truly red stones. It does vary through pink and purple tones, but the finest rubies are vivid red and come from Myanmar. Rubies feature heavily in Indian wedding jewellery, as red is thought to bring good luck and the wedding saree is often a red one, emblazoned with gold threadwork – and very heavy to wear! We all know what a ruby looks like, but you may not have come across the much rarer Star Ruby. This is an amazing stone which due to light refraction and...

June’s birthstone is the pearl, so what a fabulous opportunity to talk about my favourite gemstone! Cool to the touch and warm to wear, pearls are nature’s gift to the jeweller. Representing purity and devotion, and a firm favourite of the Royals from Elizabeth I to The Duchess of Cambridge, pearls can be fashioned into many different styles. Pearls are never out of the limelight – available in long ropes to delicate pendants, there is a style to suit everyone. Dyed pearls mean they are also in myriad colours too and modern farming techniques mean freshwater cultured pearls are keenly...

  May’s birthstone is Emerald, that fabulous beryl gemstone, named from the Greek for ‘green’. It is one of the original ‘precious gemstones’, famed for its rich green colour, first mined in Egypt from 330BC, but nowadays there are two main sources – Columbia and Zambia. The availability of fine quality emeralds is limited and treatments such as glass filling are widespread, in order to produce enough commercially viable stones. Legend has it that emeralds have the power to make the wearer more intelligent and quick-witted. It was once also believed to cure diseases such as malaria and cholera. Its...

Well, Spring is finally on us and it’s time to take a long hard look in the wardrobe.  I’m totally fed up with all my Winter clothes – mainly greys and navy – and looking forward to finer weather and digging out my Summer wardrobe.  Just like every other year, there will be clothes I’d forgotten about and old favourites I can’t bear to part with.  So now I do the cull at the end of the season, so I’ll be ditching the winter clothes now, while I’m properly fed up with them all!     And with the change...