This is a marble table in one of the corridors of Chatsworth House, if you click on the photo you can see how beautiful the amethyst geode and other rock specimens underneath it are. I think the amethyst was bought by the present Duke of Devonshire for his wife who presumably has similar taste to me, in rocks anyway.

I love amethysts, I know that they’re only semi-precious and it’s diamonds that are meant to be a girl’s best friend but I love colour so purple and reddish stones are my favourites. Then there are all those lovely agates which like amethysts are native to Scotland, semi-precious stones are just much more interesting.

When I was at primary school we were lucky to have an old lady who was a retired geologist living near the school and she used to come and give us lessons in geology. Then we went on a field trip to Callander in the Trossachs which was about an hour away by bus, it’s supposed to be a very good area for interesting rocks.

We all went along hoping to find our own bit of amethyst, they look very similar to potatoes but when you break the stone open the lovely crystals are inside – I’m still looking!

If you’re interested in Scotland or beautiful scenery have a look at some Trossachs images here.