pumpkinstrokemarrow

Puzzle No. 11 is a first in several ways. It is the first jigsaw in the present series which I have bought from new, albeit from Amazon rather than a proper shop. Pieces not large but of reasonable thickness, nicely finished and good to handle. A pleasure to work with, unlike some of its cheaper colleagues.

And then it is a picture of a place which Mr. Google can find more or less instantaneously and which I learn is the up north answer to tea at Fortnum and Mason's. Same sort of presentation and same sort of prices, as can be seen at http://www.bettys.co.uk/. I imagine the shop in the puzzle, in Harrogate, is the original and the other four or five branches build the brand. Have they, or will they, overreach themselves in the way of so many niche businesses? Dilution of the love and care which made the original what it was? Love and care which does not translate very well into a process & procedure manual for the instruction of youngsters from eastern Europe who may well have other things on their minds than protection of brand, perhaps their drinking & social lives. My only recollection of Harrogate is staying there one wet autumnal night, rather like the one illustrated, and having trouble finding anywhere to spend it, eventually lighting upon a couple from the US in a pub, a couple the lady of which slept with her very large dog; a chocolate coloured animal the size and shape of a Doberman but can't put my finger on what it actually was for sure. But I can't imagine wanting to wake up with a whacking great dog snoring on top of one. The gentleman of which was very proud of his very large, cushioned and motorised chair, used for snoozes at all times of day. Motorised in the sense of orientation; it did not run around on wheels.

It took a little while to get into the mood of this puzzle. Spent the first day rather struggling before moving into gear on the second. Edge, then the big first & second floor windows, then spread out into the other windows. Roof lines then roofs. Lights in trees, then tree lines, then trees. Car. Finish off the bottom of the image. Sky. Which last was a lot easier than it might be, being well keyed by both colour and stripe. Hard bits were what was between the roof and the big second floor windows and the display windows at street level.

A regular puzzle, with four regular pieces meeting at most corners. Except near the end, no sorting other than pulling the pieces for the bit at hand out of the general heap. Colour and texture of piece more important than shape.

Diet varied by reading a country house murder mystery from the author of Winnie the Pooh. I learn, along with the 413,233 readers of the Times (for whom this was a freebie; I had to pay 50p for mine at a garden fête), that A. Milne, after reading mathematics at Cambridge, went to work for the Punch and was a writer of adult fare before finding his true niche as the inventor of Pooh Sticks. This mystery, 'The Red House Mystery' is a slight thing, if engagingly written. One can get through it without too much trouble, but I doubt whether I will bother with a second reading. For me it falls between two stools: it lacks the muscularity of A. Christie (never mind G. Simenon) while not offering enough whimsy or cerebration to make up. Odd to think that such stuff was being knocked out at much the same time as A. Huxley was knocking out his rather more cerebral fare for cerebrants all. While both were very much products of their time.