I grew up inland, far from any coast, and for as long as I can remember I have wanted to live near the sea. For most of my life I was alone in that.

Swallows come in low over water, glide, and turn faster than the eye can follow. They arrive with the first warm weather and leave before the cold, and they fly low before rain. In Victorian jewellery, where everything meant something, the swallow stood for return.

The amethyst came before the birds. Purple is a serious colour. It is what people kept for the things that mattered most, and I knew the swallows would go into that stone before I knew anything else about the piece.

Around the setting, six flowers, each one different. On the rocky paths above the sea the small ones come first — before the grass, before anything else is ready — and they hold on in wind that would take something larger.

I made this ring in January, listening to accounts of the Baltic in winter and of ships that did not come home. They were beautiful things, those ships, and the water did not care.

Swallows navigate by the earth's magnetic field. The ones that survive the crossing come back to the same barn, the same beam, year after year. That is what I wanted in the stone. Not the crossing. The arrival.