Puzzle fun

Blog entry for June 2014

It has been a long time since I did a serious puzzle myself, so I resolved to tackle one of the Epoch (really very) small piece ones: standard 1000 size, but 2542 pieces. And I wanted to do a Horaguchi picture, because they really look fun... and my idea of fun with a puzzle means not looking at the box, avoiding the hunt-and-try stuff, just watching a picture emerge from chaos.

So first some preliminary sorting, then seize on any distinctive colours and textures... the first picture on the right shows some stripey bits, and the beginnings of a piano (the other reason I chose this one, being the most musical puzzle I recall). Meanwhile the box looks like a pink nightmare.

A day or two later, progress is being made. Then disaster! The clumsiest member of the Chandler family (the last one) hurls a carton of milk over the top right corner* of the puzzle. Perhaps at least milk was fairly innocuous: I mopped up, and dried everything carefully overnight; by the morning, there was no sign of obvious damage to the pieces at all.

* The "top right corner" is the one with the pale blue and green bits; shortly to become the lower right corner, since I decided to work with the other way up.

Beginning to make real progress... I had long expected that the two bits of music score might join end to end, but now a creeping suspicion set in that the central "rainbow" bit needed to be turned through 90 degrees.

At last! The major bits I've done so far join together, and the piano looks plausible now...

Updates to follow... Um, disaster number two

Another member of the family (not me!) managed to come back from the print shop without the memory card holding my carefully made sequence of photos showing the puzzle taking its final shape. Sadly, desperate searches have not been successful, so there will just be a finished photo to follow shortly.

So here it is — the finished puzzle...