North England, The Lake District – jigsaw puzzle

Posted on 19 December 2024 by Katrina

Yes it’s jigsaw season again, we’ve been a bit later than usual in doing a jigsaw puzzle this year, and we have a queue of new puzzles to get around to. As we were in the Lake District in the north of England fairly recently I decided to choose this one as the first to tackle. It’s one of those with several scenes on it which sort of morph into each other. I thought it might be a difficult one to do but it wasn’t too bad at all.

The different skies were fairly easy to discern, and actually a lot easier than trying to complete a vast sky of the same shade of blue. We had the usual scrabble on the floor for the last piece of puzzle, surely it wasn’t missing?! Thankfully we found it. I think I’ll leave it until after Christmas to start another one.

Jigsaw puzzle – Dumbarton Football Club’s old ground – BOGHEAD

Posted on 24 January 2024 by Katrina

We were given a couple of jigsaw puzzles at Christmas. This one was particularly for Jack as it’s of Boghead in Dumbarton, and a house builder bought the ground years ago, so this was a real nostalgia trip as Jack has supported Dumbarton FC since he was a lad, it’s a tough life!

As ever, about ten minutes into the jigsaw I wondered if it was a wise thing to do so soon after another puzzle!

It was a strange one as we had presumed that the sky and pitch would be the really difficult bits, but it turned out that it was all the supporters that we puzzled over the most. Anyway, it was very satisfying when we each took a corner of the last piece and slid it into place – and we didn’t even have to have a frantic last minute search of the carpet for a missing piece.

Over the years so many old football grounds have been bought up by house builders, it looks like this puzzle company is making a good business from the nostalgia of the older fans. Even I used to go to the matches as a youngster as there wasn’t much else to do on a Saturday unless you took the train to Glasgow to do some shopping. My pal and I used to ask a couple of likely looking men if they would lift us over the turnstile, and they always obliged. You couldn’t do that nowadays with the modern turnstiles. Yes it was aptly named as it was indeed a very boggy pitch. I remember during the 1970s when there was basically a paddling pool stretching across the whole of the middle of the pitch and the players just played through it.

Neuschwanstein Schloss, Germany – a jigsaw puzzle

Posted on 19 January 2023 by Katrina

Our second jigsaw puzzle (and possibly the last) of the year is of Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. It’s a place that I almost visited because back in 1970 I was in Bavaria staying with a penpal, and we were supposed to be visiting the castle, but I was so homesick and was not having a good time so I decided to go home a week early. I’ve always wondered if I made a mistake doing that – so when the saleswoman in the shop we bought this puzzle in told us that she had visited the place with her parents in the 1970s when she was a child, and her father was furious when they got to the castle I realised I hadn’t missed much. Apparently it’s a long hard walk up to the castle and when you get there it is completely empty! The original owner spent all his money building the place and couldn’t afford any furniture. I wonder if it has been furnished now. This is supposed to be the most photographed and prettiest castle in the world but to me it looks like a barrack with a few pepperpot turrets stuck on it.

Anyway, this autumnal view of the castle almost did me in, the building was easy, the trees not too bad but the sky was a nightmare, after a few day’s rest we tackled it again and got there.

We still have a queue of four or five other puzzles to do but I might leave them for next winter!

The Western Highlands – A Jigsaw puzzle

Posted on 19 November 2021 by Katrina

Yes it’s that time of the year again – jigsaw puzzle season. As you can see our first choice this year is another one from The Railway Poster Collection. The image depicts The Western Highlands, it’s a 1,000 piece puzzle and it was a charity shop purchase which is always a bit of a worry, mind you in the past we have had the annoying experience of buying a brand new factory sealed puzzle in the past and it had several pieces missing!

Anyway, this puzzle turned out to be not as difficult as I had feared, so it was really enjoyable. However, there was one piece missing and we were just about to commence the manic shaking out of throws, cushions, newspapers and such, we had already gone over the carpet with a torch looking for the piece. But I needed something in my handbag which was on a table in a different room and suddenly the piece was on the table! I can only think that it had fallen into my bag when it was under the jigsaw table.

When I spotted the piece I was so shocked I couldn’t actually say anything, just pointed and screeched, Jack thought I had seen a beastie. Ah well, all’s well that ends well, but we’ll leave it a few weeks at least before tackling another jigsaw puzzle.

Jigsaw puzzle – a Dutch bulbfield

Posted on 15 February 2021 by Katrina

Last week when after a lot of trying the snow began to pile up in earnest outside I decided to crack open a new jigsaw puzzle. I know – so daring of me – others might crack open the beer or wine – but I’m made of more boring stuff I suppose.

As ever it wasn’t long before I was beginning to wonder why I had succumbed yet again to this version of madness, it’s an addiction I suppose. Normally by now I would either have visited family in the Netherlands or be planning to do so soon, but the closest I’ll get to that this year is this jigsaw puzzle of a windmill and a Dutch bulbfield.

Actually it wasn’t as difficult as I feared it might be but as you can see the sky is almost defeating me, today I only fitted about four pieces in and I have my doubts about them being correct, but it isn’t going to defeat me, or should I say us as Jack has helped now and again. This is definitely going to be the last puzzle of the season though, well the snow has almost all gone!

Peace Celebration, Moscow – a jigsaw puzzle.

Posted on 20 November 2020 by Katrina

The first jigsaw puzzle of the winter season has been completed. It was a lot easier than we thought it would be, but still challenging enough to be fun. The design has so many different and often unique shapes to the pieces which helped a lot.

The original artwork was painted by Sir Claude Francis Barry. If you’re interested in seeing more of his work you can do so here.

Jigsaw – Peace Celebrations, Moscow

Posted on 16 November 2020 by Katrina

It’s definitely winter as it’s jigsaw season here again. I bought this one in a charity shop, so I hope all the pieces are there. Mind you buying one new and wrapped in plastic is no guarantee that all the pieces are there, and once I finished a puzzle and had several bits leftover – from a very different puzzle!

Anyway, I was attracted by this one which is titled Peace Celebrations, Moscow and it’s from a painting by Sir Claude Francis Barry. It’s painted in the Pointillist style.

I’ve been doing it mainly from the bottom upwards and it hasn’t been as difficult as I feared it might be, but now that I’ve reached the fireworks it’s becoming trickier. One thing I like about this puzzle is that the pieces are all different shapes, that makes it more interesting and slightly easier to find the correct piece I think.

Moscow – a jigsaw puzzle

Posted on 27 April 2020 by Katrina

This jigsaw puzzle of Moscow is only the third one we have completed since the lockdown and I must admit that I enjoyed doing this one a lot more than the last one which was the Venice puzzle – the sky of which did more or less defeat me – but thankfully not Jack.

This one too had a lot of sky.

With careful scrutiny of the accompanying small poster it was fairly easy to figure out all the very different designs on the buildings, steeples and onion domes. Now we just have to decide which puzzle to do next, New York which looks fiendish or London which is not nearly as attractive as this one is – sorry London.

Venice jigsaw puzzle

Posted on 17 April 2020 by Katrina

I think that a lot of us have been doing jigsaw puzzles during this strange time of self-isolation and lockdown. Purely by good luck I bought a box containing four jigsaws a couple of months ago so we had a choice of ‘doing’ Venice, London, New York or Moscow. I opted to visit Venice first.

Maybe I should have been a wee bit choosier because it was an absolute swine of a puzzle and it almost beat us. Truly I suppose it did beat me as after leaving it alone for a few days then going back to it thinking I would be able to solve it just like that – as sometimes happens with difficult cryptic crossword puzzles, I was sorely disappointed – it was still a swine.

It was the sky that almost defeated us, there are just no clues to go by, the blue being all one shade. I gave up and went out to weed the garden, and Jack continued. At one point he got down to just three pieces – BUT THEY DIDN’T FIT IN ANYWHERE! Careful scrutiny revealed some possible mistakes and eventually after picking out some likely pieces the puzzle was completed by Jack. I was still weeding.

He thinks that there are some parts of the water and sky which might not be correct but it’ll have to do, towards the end this one was definitely not good for my mental health so it might be a few weeks before we tackle another puzzle!

Queensferry Harbour – a Jigsaw Puzzle

Posted on 17 March 2020 by Katrina

Winter is jigsaw puzzle season for us but we hadn’t done any for over a year, it seemed that we might have a jigsaw free winter because I just didn’t see any in the shops that I wanted to do, but when I saw this Queensferry Harbour one I had to buy it. At first – as often happens – I despaired of being able ever to complete it, but in the end we managed it within five or so days.

On Sunday the day dawned bright with a blue sky – and no rain. We had been looking forward to going to an annual book sale for ages, south of Edinburgh but it was cancelled at the last minute. Presumably the organisers thought that not many people would turn up due to the coronavirus being around. It meant we felt at a bit of a loose end so we decided to drive to South Queensferry – the scene of the puzzle – and had lunch there. I took just a few photos.

Yes, by then it had started to cloud over a wee bit, but it was still a nice wee change.

On the way back home we dropped in at Tesco supermarket intending to do our normal weekly shop and were greeted by empty shelves. Such a sense of panic with many people and I couldn’t help thinking that they probably didn’t have enough room in their freezers to accommodate everything they were buying – there was no meat left, or even eggs. I suspect a lot of the food would end up being wasted. Crazy.

Lah di dah, lah di dah. Can you tell that I’ve been watching Annie Hall?!

Pining for the West

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