Spend the Week With Me The Chaos of a Jeweler s Deadline

As a jeweler, the busiest week of the year is the week before Christmas. Every customer has the same deadline and everyone wants their presents to turn up before Christmas. Knit match. It's now two days left at work and I have three rings to finish. One down, two more to go. So once they're done, I need to jump on a plane and personally make sure these rings get to their customers. I just hope I have the time. We've got like three quite big engagement rings or actually not engagement rings, some of them are, some are just gifts. So we've got to get all of them ready because they're all going to the south of France, Monaco sort of area. And yeah, just get them all ready so we can deliver them. So a lot of pressure at the minute to get it all done. You ready for our trip? Very ready, very ready. I'm ready. It's going to be cold, it's going to be very cold apparently. This one's done, the other two are on the way. You know what, I do feel bad that I can't actually make it with you. You don't feel bad at all. I'm here to support you. You can make me a cup of tea then. I'll just have a cup of tea instead. No, because you already like the upstairs water. Annoying. Well, enjoy. The thing with this time of year, your fingers hurt so much, where you're working so hard like trying to get everything done. You sort of slip, drill into your fingers, buff them off. So I'm definitely going to need a break after this to like let the skin grow back basically. They look amazing, don't they? 10 carat 50. One down, two more to go and then we're ready. So Alba's got to go and get all the paperwork ready for customs now. Which is a horrible job, actually worse than actually making the ring. So that's Alba's job. So yeah, she's not getting off too easy. I think that's probably my favourite part about the job, is that I just get to try stuff on all the time. Practice, is what we call it. That's so dramatic. She's got big fingers. That's number one. Now we have to do this one. Second engagement ring. Jack's been on the shank, Ruben's on setting. Then yeah, we just all like put a bit of work in and just get it done. I make the rings, wrap the rings, polish the rings, deliver the rings, everything. So boring. Does he do that, Alba? No, he's a liar. What have you actually done apart from just walk around? What are you making then? Like a couple of bells sitting there, yeah? What bells? Christmas bells. I'll make him watch out another day. So it's a five carat, I think a 501. It's got a set in this ring now. So we just put the like arden and cement around it just to keep it all straight. It's going to put a lot of pressure over when we bend the claws. Diamonds are quite strong, but it's when you start setting emeralds and all that, that's when you sort of panic quite a lot. But yeah, this should be pretty straightforward. What's the best thing about the week before Christmas that you do a lot? I think it's actually quite exciting. Like you need to get a lot of stuff done in a day. More motivating. Yeah, it's motivating. I just like it when it's really busy. I think I quite like, enjoy that. I don't know if Aaron would enjoy that as much, but I think it's good. What on earth does that mean to me? Next step, I'm going to file them up. Yeah, so when you're filing, you've got to be a little bit careful with diamonds. Again, they're so strong. But the files we've got, the metal's a little softer. So there's not as harsh as the ones we use on metal. So they can be a little bit better. Filing means you realise the point is to follow the shape. When's your flight? Tomorrow morning. It's very early in the morning. I don't do mornings. They're not fun. I'm going to do some more files. There's foam here. He makes up stuff. The ring. Hide them all in there and upstairs. No, that one's too obvious. I'm going to hide the other one. I just won't tell him where it is. Yeah, but he only lost it. Yeah, but we can, we'll say that he put it somewhere for safekeeping. Just put it under the hat or something. My hat? No, your hat's in there. Yes, we're going to buff up all the files now. Get it all ready for the polish. Smooth out all the marks. And then once it's polished, it's ready to go. How long you got left? We ain't got long left really. Got a couple of valves, but I think that's quite manageable. No panic at the minute. I think we've got to pick the rings up. Yeah, let him in, mate. Someone's actually taken them over for us because they've got to do all the custom forms and all stuff like that. But literally, we're going along with them. So we're ready to clear all the customs, so we haven't really got to do it because I haven't got a clue. It's just very complicated when you take things abroad sometimes. No, because last time you done that, you burned me. This is the envelope you get. We're going to put their initials into the stamp. Match, lip match. Right, health and safety. That's the right spelling, isn't it? E-D-E? No. What is it? You spelt it wrong. Can't wait. I'm dyslexic, so it's all spelt wrong. So this is more of a detailed polisher. So we're getting into all the little corners to make sure everything is super polished and bright. Once we're done with this one, we use the big one. Then we come to this one. Then we go back to the big one just to make sure the polish is like perfection, especially on a 10 carat, what's it, 54 diamond. It needs to be perfect. Not long. Pretty much all done now. Just need to get them all cleaned up in the sonic. So this black polish, basically, we're going to sonic it off. Then we're going to give them a good steam, check them all. Any sort of little bit of dirt, which is like stuck in there. Make sure everything's perfect. Oh yeah, it looks perfect. Look at that. What was that moving? That was on your side. It was there and I over touched it. It's not there. You've moved something to do something. Warm, warm. Boiling you up. So sad. That's how she gets her kick out of life. Where's the little sticker? Hello? No joke, no time to overdrive. Tomorrow morning, she doesn't come down too early. I'm going to go up and literally drag her out. Where are we going? You're going home to get ready for Monaco. I'm going to go out and I'm going to pick you up in a few hours. Let's go. Come on. Good morning. Morning. Oh my God. It is so cold. Are you tired? I'm so tired. My eyes are burning. You ready for today? At the moment, I'm ready for bed. You're ready for bed? Yeah. Fun though. Let's go. What's your actual favourite ring actually out of these three rings? My personal favourite, I think the pear. The pear is lovely, isn't it? I've got it on my hand. Emerald just doesn't suit it. But I do get to try a lot of things on. A lot of rings, yeah. I am spoiled for choice. Oval though, I think. You don't want any of them, you want an oval? No. 12 carat oval please. 12 carat oval, at least we know. While we haven't shipped these rings and we want to go out there personally to the customers is they're really special customers to us. They've bought some amazing stuff over time and it's a nice trip. It's Christmas, we're going to go out and see them. I think they've got some activities booked for us. So it's just building relations, go and see our customers and they're all special pieces. And also we've run out of time, yeah. So we ain't really got the time to do much shipping or sort of getting them all there safe enough. But this works out perfect. And actually me and Alva want to go to Monaco. So for a little trip. We're going to be late, I think, for this plane. We're going to be late. We're going to be late for this plane. We're really late and we're catching every single traffic light. And it's like... There's too many people for this time of the morning. Did normal people get up at this time? Normal people, who are you then? Not normal. If this passes as a normal time to be up for a normal person You're not normal, no. I don't want to park in the passenger seat. Could you take such wild turns? On our way to Monaco now. So we've just arrived into Monaco now. We're going to go for a little coffee, a croissant and then we've got a couple of minutes walk away. We're going to go and see our customer and drop off all these rings that we've been so stressed out to get done. Do you just love Christmas, Scrooge? I actually don't love Christmas that much because we're always so busy. But today is the first day I've actually been... Actually, it's Christmas. We're going to enjoy it. It's very Christmassy here. I think it's more Christmassy than London. It's more calmer in London. That's what's nice. I'm going on holiday in literally a few days to Rio. So this is not very good for the diet but it's going to have to be done when you're here. So we are finished in Monaco now. All done. Yeah, we went to see all the customers. Had a great day. They took us around Monaco a little bit. They took us on some amazing boats as well. It was really amazing. So hopefully Christmas Day, everything is amazing. They'll all guess what we delivered today. So we won't actually know if they're going to like them. I'm sure they will. But now all we've got to do is get on the plane, go back to London, back to the cold weather and get ready for Christmas. That's it. I do feel very Christmassy now though. It's very Christmassy here. It's so Christmassy. I think it's more Christmassy here than it is in London. It is, it is. I think it's nice, it's nice. But let's go. Adios, Monaco. Thank you. We could just stay here. Should we just stay? We could stay. We could go to the casino. Should we just cancel the flight? I mean, just cancel the flight. I've got to go on that desperately. You've got to go to Rio. I'll be going to Rio and then go. Okay, let's go to the casino.