pumpkinstrokemarrow

Moved to do another puzzle, number 12, there having been a bit of a pause since number 11 on May 22nd.

This was my first puzzle from Waddingtons and (I think) one of the 10p ones from the Hook Road car booter (see May 27th). Another 500 piecer but with a box slightly too big to scan, so I had to resort to the mobile phone. The image of the completed puzzle was very poor for some reason, so readers will have to make do with the image from the box.

The main point of interest being the relatively large proportion of pieces of irregular size and shape, with plenty of interior vertices not being the meeting point of four of them, and with a small number of pieces being near double the norm in size. This coupled with the image having no large expanses of uniform colour & texture made for easy solution, taking under 24 hours, a personal best - not that speed is really a virtue in this context.

Started off with the edge, then the sky line, then the sky. This early completion of the sky being another oddity. I then connected the down spike of the sky to the bottom of the image, thus dividing the puzzle into two halves. Then selecting red, did the pub sign (top right) and the red door (bottom left). At this point I thought to do the windows of the left hand half, but this was not to be. Don't seem to be much good at overt strategy decisions.

Instead went for the distinctive roof tiles of the top left hand quadrant. The the white drain pipe to the left and the green stripe to the right - both being accomplished in just a few minutes. Selection by pipe in the one case and by green in the other. Then nibbled away at things, particularly the view of the street down the middle of the image. Eventually plumped for the remainder of the right hand half and did that. Then the big windows to the right of the smaller sign on the left. Then below the big windows and lastly above the big windows.