Search the internet for the definition of a gemstone and you’ll find many answers…

For me, a gemstone is something beautiful which can be combined with precious metal to create a piece of jewellery with the ability to make someone feel good, have sentimental attachments or evoke special memories…

While gemmologists wouldn’t consider this “Welsh Blue” to be a gemstone, it brought back some really happy memories from my childhood… I didn’t grow up in South Wales where this by-product of the iron smelting process was produced (fab recycling!), but I did enjoy fun times “sledging” down the disused railway bank near where I grew up… (and by “sledging” I mean careering down on an old plastic fertilizer sack… with the accompanying bruises… those were the days…)

The connection? There were chunks of similar material on the railway bank which I collected and sadly lost along the way…