Some of you may know that I like to solve jigsaw puzzles. Some of you may not. However, I do enjoy the concentration they demand.
I started doing jigsaws again about three years ago. We’d been away for the weekend with Karen and Dave, at Ipstones and Karen had had one on the go. I was surprised how relaxing it was to just sit and make the pieces fit (actually, to consider which piece fitted where, NOT ‘make the pieces fit’)! Another friend, Carol, was already hooked and many is the time we’d go to her house and find a partially completed jigsaw open in the living room.
Discussion and research told me that jigsaws were good for the mind, especially as people age. So, as a nod in that direction (the avoidance or deterrence of dementia/Alzheimer’s) I began to solve jigsaw puzzles.
Sharon bought me my first [see it here] and that took an age to build. There were lots of dark corners and an uncertainty of which piece fitted where. Then Carol gave me more, often passed on from her mum and/or her friend Jennifer. I also began to buy my own from charity shops. Locally, they were 50p a time and up and down the country they could cost as much as £2.00 and generally speaking, they were all OK. Nevertheless, some had pieces missing, which is frustrating and this is one of the reasons I will not pay the £2.50 – £4.00 that some national charities now want to charge for their jigsaws. Why would I pay that much for something that is incomplete – because there’s nothing more challenging than looking for a piece (or pieces) that are just not there. PLEASE – if you know there’s a piece missing, say so when you leave the box with the charity – or – throw it away.
Different manufacturers use different qualities of board. One popular brand; King, is one of the more ubiquitous makes but often their pieces fit in more than one place, which is unhelpful. However, they do have a fabulous range of pictures to work with. The best so far, for me has been Ravensburger, a German company. The board they use is thicker and the pieces fit with a satisfying click (ish). A new one to me, of similar quality to Ravensburger is Wasgij, recently to be found in Aldi stores. They have the same satisfying click when pieces fit and there is no doubt about the quality. The one featured on this page is a children’s ‘what did the goldfish see’ puzzle, where you don’t know what is contained on the finished picture.
At home I tend to work with 1,000 piece puzzles but on holiday (I’m in Spain now) a 500 piece puzzle is enough. I have to like the finished picture and one of the best has been Clarke Gable and Vivien Leigh in a poster from Gone With The Wind.
See my Flicker jigsaw album to see all the ones I’ve solved. These are now mostly passed onto friends or relatives.
Saturday Walks 