At 62, I stopped waiting for somebody to buy me something
At 62, I stopped waiting for somebody to buy me something
Six things the Love bracelet gets right, from a woman who had not had a little box to open in rather a long time.
Caroline Richards · Customer · Nottinghamshire · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Caroline, I am 62, I live in Nottinghamshire, and I have never once sat down to write about jewellery. What I noticed this summer, sitting at my own kitchen table, is that the little boxes had stopped coming. Not dramatically. Nobody did anything wrong. They just stopped, the way things do, and I had not said a word about it to anybody, including myself. So this is not a review. It is a woman who finally bought her own, saying so.
The bracelet is called the Love, from Nottingham Boutique, a small boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. A chunky gold chain with a smooth polished bar across the front and a little puffed heart hanging at the side. When the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
A heart bracelet, bought by me, for me. At 62. Read on.
I want to be fair to everybody here, because this is not a complaint. Derek is a good man who has never in forty years been a jewellery man, and he would be the first to tell you so. The children give me lovely practical things, bath sets and garden vouchers, and the year my kettle went they gave me a new kettle and I was genuinely pleased. There is no villain in this story. There is just a quiet arithmetic that creeps up on you: birthdays that are nice but sensible, Christmases that are lovely and useful, and somewhere in the middle of it, years since anybody handed you something small in a box.
I had spent an awful lot of years waiting to be given something, and had never once thought of buying it myself.
So I did, on an ordinary Tuesday, for less than the price of a supermarket shop. And having worn it every day since, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
It came in a padded envelope on a Tuesday. I put it straight on and did the washing up in it.
It has a weight you can feel
The links are proper chunky ovals rather than the thin chains that disappear on an older wrist, and there is a smooth polished bar across the front that gives it some substance. You feel it when you move. The heart taps gently against my wrist while I am doing things, which sounds like nothing written down, and turns out to be the part I would miss most.
The links, the bar and the heart. Chunky, but not heavy on.
Lovely weight to it. My other bracelets are so fine you forget they are there, and this one you notice all day in a good way.
Angela H., BeestonThe heart is yours to mean what you like
It is a plain little puffed heart. Nothing written on it, no initials, no dates. So it can be your mother, or your husband, or the dog you still miss, or nobody at all. Mine is not for anybody. Mine is for the fact that I bought it, which is the first time I have done that in my life, and I find I rather like glancing down at it.
I turn it round without realising. Usually when I am on the phone.
I bought it for myself for my sixtieth and I have worn it every day since. The heart is for my mum.
Rosemary B., SouthwellA proper clasp, and a safety chain
It fastens with a decent lobster clasp, the sort you can actually see and work, with a little extra chain so it sits where you want it rather than where it lands. And there is a fine safety chain running alongside the links, which I did not know I cared about until I remembered the bracelet I lost somewhere between Nottingham and my sister's in about 2009.
The safety chain gives me confidence to wear it out. The clasp is big enough for me to manage on my own too.
Wendy S., KimberleyIt looks far dearer than it was
This is the bit that made me suspicious before it arrived. The polished bar catches the light, the links are solid rather than hollow-looking, and together they read as something out of a proper jeweller's window. Nobody at the coffee morning asked what it cost. They asked where it was from, which is a different question, and a much nicer one.
Everyone assumes it was expensive. It looks like something from a jeweller rather than something I ordered online.
Marion K., BinghamGold or white gold, and it behaves with a wedding ring
Mine is the gold, which sits perfectly happily next to my wedding band, and there is a white gold one with a pearly heart if your things are silver-toned. I have worn it with a cardigan at home and with my good coat to a funeral, and it has not looked wrong either time.
Wear it with everything, dressed up or in my gardening things. Goes with my rings without clashing.
Pat L., ArnoldIt is an everyday bracelet, not an occasion one
I have enough things that live in a box waiting for a day that never comes. This one goes on in the morning with everything else and stays on. It has been to the shops, the garden centre, a hospital appointment with Derek and a christening, and it has not once been the wrong thing to have on.
Out for a coffee on Saturday, which is where the questions started.
I have not taken it off since it came. It suits jeans as much as it suits going out, which I did not expect.
Christine D., Burton JoyceThis, against waiting to be given something
I am not against being given presents. I would simply rather not spend another decade waiting for one. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Birthdays that are kind but practical
Nothing to open, and nothing said about it
The good things live in a box upstairs
You hope somebody guesses right
Another year goes by
Chunky links with a weight you feel
A plain heart that means what you decide
On your wrist every ordinary day
Chosen by the person who knows your taste
Here by Tuesday
About the price
The Love bracelet is £24.95 at the moment. It was £50.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that with the autumn sale on, small things like this go quickly once people see them. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half price usually has me asking what is wrong with a thing, and weeks of wearing it every day, I have not found it.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered a second one for my sister. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.
In the dish on the dressing table overnight, next to the glasses. Back on before breakfast.
If the little boxes stopped coming for you too, and you have been quietly waiting the way I was, I would start here. Not because a bracelet fixes anything. It does not. But there is something in choosing a thing yourself, putting it on yourself, and having somebody ask who gave it to you, that I would recommend to any woman our age. Go and have a look.
Caroline
LOVE | Chunky Heart Bracelet
- Chunky oval links with a real weight to them
- A smooth polished bar across the front
- A plain puffed heart, yours to mean what you like
- Lobster clasp, extender and a fine safety chain
- Gold or white gold
- Sits easily beside a wedding ring
- Free UK delivery and 30 day returns
The autumn sale is on now. Small things like this go quickly.