– Opinion –
Every Christmas, our very kind fur babies head off to the shops and come back with a family gift of either a Wasgij or a Jan van Haasteren puzzle for us to build on holiday. (For the uninformed a Wasgij is a backward jigsaw puzzle and you have no real clue what you are building, and the Jan van Haasteren puzzles are hilarious cartoon puzzles that always include a shark and a bishop somewhere!)
It’s become a kind of family tradition thing – no matter where we are for Christmas, we build a puzzle. And it’s very therapeutic – nothings screams more ‘it’s me-time’ than building a puzzle – especially if one is building said puzzle with a glass of wine. (The trick is to ensure that said wine glass does not fall onto said puzzle. Trust me – it’s not a good mix!)
Just before lockdown, people started panicking about how to keep themselves and their families entertained, and puzzles suddenly became a strong contender. They flew out of the shops. So given that over the years we have amassed a sizable collection of at least seventy ‘eleventy’ puzzles, my friends came flocking to borrow them. Some were very conservative and only borrowed one – which has since lead to clandestine puzzle swapping exercises in car parks while out shopping, or furtively swapping them at the home gate. Of course, all puzzles are carefully pre-sanitised and no hands touch other hands during this exercise. It’s kind of like something out of a James Bond movie – I put my parcel down and you put yours down. Then we socially distance and take turns in retrieving puzzle parcels one at a time. Then we wave our farewells and scurry away.
But if it keeps ourselves and the offspring of our loins entertained during lockdown, then that’s all that matters. I will be working today but am already thinking of 5pm when someone rings the ‘it’s puzzle and wine time’ bell. Can’t wait!
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