pumpkinstrokemarrow

The first round puzzle in the current series, a 500 piecer from Waddingtons. The colours in the illustration do not do it justice, but it was the most satisfying puzzle yet. Perhaps they have a point when they explain on the back of the box that 'dedicted puzzle fans have always favoured Waddington jigsaw puzzles from the quality and value'. This one, as it happens, £2 and with the pieces still in their unopened bag, never mind used, from some charity shop or other.

For some reason I found this still life far more satisfying than a photograph of a train or even of Hampton Court. I liked the richness and variety of tone, quite hard to translate from the picture on the box to the puzzle itself. The puzzle was about the right level of difficulty, with a slow start then gradually gathering speed as one got the hang of first the roundness and then the picture itself. Maybe I liked the food & drink subject matter? Was I being subtly stroked by the drink in question being a bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin, a rather fancier looking bottle than I can afford but a tipple of which I partake in its cheaper variants when I can get them (see, for example, August 13 & 17 last year)?

The picture was the product of one Raymond Campbell, a gent., possibly a gentleman painter from Surrey and almost certainly a boozer given the prominence of bottles in his pictures, not that much younger than myself and who has an extensive presence on the web even it he, oddly, does not bother with his own web site. Interestingly, the web says that he declined the privilege of going to art school, preferring to teach himself.

Did the border OK, but then slowed right down when I started on the bread. Completely disorientated by having a round puzzle which seemed to mean that one had no idea which way up a piece was, although after some hours, if not days, I worked out that round puzzles have a geometry of their own, a geometry which gets quite strong as you get nearer the centre of the picture. The puzzle was very irregular in that lots of pieces did not meet at the corners, lots of pieces had irregular shape and a high proportion did not have the regular hole-prong-hole-prong formation. Lots to take on board.

Eventually got through most of the bread then moved onto the labels on the bottle. Then the grapes. All this, leaving various holes along the way, holes that were gradually stopped up as one came across the offending piece while looking for something else.

Then the cheese, which seemed a lot easier than what had gone before. The crept along the board, from right to left, knocking off the knife, the napkin and the glass along the way. The leaves. The bottom of the image. Now done apart from the background tiles.

These, while standing for the sky you get in many puzzles, were a lot easier than the average sky. Made a framework by doing the grout between the tiles first and then the rest of it fell into place quite quickly, the irregularity becoming a plus rather than a minus once there were few enough pieces for the brain to scan them quickly and reliably for shape.

Brain clearly tired out by all this as I fell into a strange error in Waitrose shortly after, wanting to buy some cheese to go with the brown bread which would be baked later in the day. A white goat from Swaledale, fair enough. But then I spotted something which looked a bit like cheddar, not something that this Waitrose really majors on. A cheese which described itself as oak smoked. I then, quite unconsciously, translated this phrase into mature, traditional, farmhouse, heritage and decided that the cheese was just what I wanted - to be rather surprised by the smoky flavour later in the day. The brain had clearly got its descriptors for fish and cheese muddled up.

With the result that I have now got rather a large lump of cheese which tastes rather like the smoked Bavarian I used to buy off fat plastic wrapped sausages of the stuff. With or without small lumps of ham incorporated.