Sunday Rain

Its Sunday again, a day of rest and play for sure, or is it? This is my second Sunday at work doing odd jobs while we have our wooden floor sanded and re lacquered, or whatever they do to make it look good again. Whilst the time is well spent, apart from this blog you may say, clearing paperwork and getting organised desk wise, Its Sunday, a day of rest and play, or is that in the past too?

This may be a deeper Sunday blog than first thought because as I was standing at the shop door waiting for Dave, a nice Ausie guy, who is "doing" the floor, I watched the rain and lots of people mooching around. Actually they were shopping in the rain, how silly! This made me look around to see how many shops were in fact open. Not too many from where I was looking, mostly the larger independents or national stores but enough to get people out and about shopping in rainy Bishop's Stortford.

I would imagine that the shopping "Malls" would be packed as usual, but at what cost? The population has only so much to spend and only so much time to spend it in. This made me question why we need ALL shops open on a Sunday. Surely this really is just greed by those shops who open, is it an economic necessity, or do they just want to grab a larger market share and deprive people a day of relative rest?


Thinking to myself is this progress or regress? Do I need to shop 24/7? Am I having to borrow money to fuel my shopping? Then I looked at the prosperity of the larger chain stores like Tesco, Sainsbury, Primark etc, etc are these companies destroying our way of life? They grab market share and gobble up the smaller shops who offer diverse ranges rather than only those that sell best. They take us away from the Sunday DIY, read the paper, a bit of gardening, wash the car, footy or swimming with the kids, a lunchtime pint, and Sunday dinner at 2:30 with time after to rest or walk the dog. Now it seems many people go shopping from 10am for a few hours, those who used to go to the pubs either don't or spend all afternoon in them because of the flexible licensing hours. Most people now don't go to the pub because they are shopping I suppose, dozens of pubs are closing every week, another part of the community along with the corner shop/post office closed down by open all hours, sell everything shopping.

Should everything revolve around shopping? Am I being a miserable old git? Personally I feel this whole subject is being driven by us but only because 24/7 shopping is easy. You don't have to plan your day or week, you can just go and get whatever you want whenever you want it. Doesn't this just make us lazy? Neglecting perhaps some important "downtime", family time or social interaction time?

What on earth has this got to do with Jewellery I hear you ask. Well, we are feeling the pressure to open on Sundays. More people now almost expect us to be open 10 till 4 on Sunday. I think this will only get stronger over time. I will not open every Sunday though we do open now in December, because everyone else does. Not that it is an important trading day, we almost always see the same faces who would shop with us anyway but its just a bit more convenient on a Sunday, so for us it is almost a customer service. It will only take one of the high St. Jewellers to open then we will have to reassess the response, unless of course we open first????

Good news from the Drewster (young Ed) he may have two tickets for Arsenal V Chelsea in a couple of hours. One for me, that is if Dave, the Ausie floor guy, gets the floor done in time, otherwise I could go shopping..!

Christmas windows

Its that time of year again time for us to get our thinking caps on. Throughout the year here at Ce' The Jeweller we change our window displays and try to come up with striking and imaginative features, designed to grab your attention and show case our jewellery. This year we've had feathers (by the crate full) to celebrate Bishops Stortford's carnival, and crazed pumpkins over Halloween, but Christmas is when we really go to town. Over the years we've had some great displays, from bright pink back in 2003 to gold wreathes just last year. This year we've gone for dark blue bases, to match our elegant exterior (the shops that is) , and gold and silver stars and trees, with the theme carried on inside.

In the windows this year we have decided to showcase Jewellery from Hearts on Fire, designs from Italian Jewellery House Orlando Orlandini, oversize watches from TW Steel and fine diamond and coloured stone pieces from our own collection.

Jewellery from Hearts on fire, (left) includes the new 'reflection' pendant in 18ct white gold along side the much admired felicity wedding and engagement ring set featuring a 1.25ct centre stone.

Orlando Orlandini features large pieces in both white and yellow gold using fine wires, mesh and ring to create truly unique pieces from their workshops in Italy.

TW Steel specialise in BIG watches and have recently rolled out their women range, featuring brightly coloured straps and with their trademark 'oversize' dials these watches certainly make a statement!

As I write this the finishing touches are going on around me, a ball here, some mistletoe there and things are generally coming together. As those of you who join us in The George on Christmas eve, or who just come in to say hello know, Christmas at Ce' The Jeweller is about more than just selling diamonds and watches. We hope to see you over the next few weeks, so we can share some of our festive cheer and maybe some sherry.

New Claws to a diamond ring

This is a video I made a little while ago to show how I renew claws, I don’t "tip" the claws with solder like many workshop repairers do. A new piece of gold or platinum is placed on the outer area to give a larger area to solder to. This gives a more secure claw, allowing the claw to be blended into the original setting.

Hearts On Fire Training

Last month James Harrigan our resident 'diamond expert' crossed the pond and attended the Hearts on Fire university in Las Vegas. For those of you who dont know Hearts on Fire (or HOF) diamonds are the worlds most perfectly cut diamonds, which we stock at Ce' The Jeweller

Whilst in Vegas James learned how the diamonds were cut and the special technique's used by HOF to make sure that every stone achieves perfection, he was also treated to presentations from expert speakers and took part in team building exercises.

As part of James' role as our HOF liaison he imparts his knowledge upon the rest of us at weekly training evenings and at opportune moment's during the day. We took advantage of one of these rare moments today, and practised our 2 minute presentations.

The 2 minute presentation is chance for both us and our customer to handle a loose HOF stone, it allows us to demonstrate how well the stone is cut and explain the many unique thing about hearts on fire.

To start with James(on the right)

picks up the loose stone, in this case a 0.75ct, with his diamond tweezers. He then places it is under the proportion scope, this is a magnified and colour enhanced tube which allows you to see the facets on a diamond. With HOF diamonds it allows you to clearly see all of the facets, how they are perfectly proportioned, perfectly symmetrical and the pattern that they produce.

Once the proportion scope is aligned over the diamond, James checks it and then invites the customer to have a look. Whilst the customers is marveling at the cut, polish and symmetry of the stone James explains how HOF are able to cut their diamonds to this standard every time.

The main aim of our training today was to perfect our technique when showing the stone and to remember to involve as many as the unique things about HOF as possible, which isn't always easy when you standing in front of someone.

Here you can see James demonstrating a perfect 2 minute presentation, and me trying to replicate it, we think we did pretty well.

Theres only one way to find out how good we really are, come and see for yourself at Ce' The Jeweller