A Setback

I had some work done in my lounge. "We'll have to move this ... and this .. and ..." Whoa! Be super careful of that round table which, underneath a protective sheet, houses the most difficult jigsaw puzzle known to humankind. I say. Very much an incomplete puzzle, a work in (slow) progress.

The building work (removal and disposal of asbestos, since you ask) finished, they offer to restore all items of furniture to their original positions. But I exclude the puzzle table from that, preferring to take care of it myself. Carefully remove the sheet ... oh my! There are pieces all over the place, including the floor. Disaster! What's more, this Star Wars jigsaw is double sided and the colour of the reverse side - i.e. the more difficult side which I understandably chose to leave until the second run through - is uncannily similar to that of my lounge carpet.  Much hunting on my (sore) knees ensued and this morning I began to process of retro fitting all the loose pieces.

I'm most of the way there but have discovered a potential problem: there appears to be a piece missing. 😭 More scrabbling around on the floor. The covering sheet, meanwhile, has been through the washing machine and the tumble drier so I put my head inside those to check, also retracing the route from the lounge to the utility room. Nothing. Maybe the piece is on the puzzle table somewhere. I'll keep you informed.

On the bright side, when I got the sheet out to cover the puzzle, I found one of my lost socks (see 22 Jan). Although it no longer matters as there is now no such thing as a pair.

Three Sisters Playing Chess

The Game of Chess (Portrait of the artist's sisters playing chess) is a painting by Sofonisba Anguissola from 1555. Anguissola was 23 years old when she painted it.

It looks like a bit of a mismatch. I think the confident-looking elder sister (Lucia) is about to declare 'Check', maybe even 'Checkmate'. And the youngest (Europe) looks a bit of a mischief - she might tip the board over if her favourite sister (the stern-looking Minerva) is about to lose. Minerva's King looks a bit exposed and it's possible Lucia has captured the Black Queen and has it in her hand.

It looks like Minerva has her hand raised - is that a concession of defeat?

The painting is in the National Museum in Poznan, Poland. I hope nobody makes it into a jigsaw puzzle.

Puzzle Palace

More clunky video. I hope you can enjoy the content despite my obvious lack of movie making skills!

Spheres

I've just had another birthday present. I'm like the Queen, in that I have two birthdays a year. That's the only resemblance; as far as I know, she doesn't have a blog.

I was woken up by the chiming of my doorbell at 07:10 today. I'm pretty sure none of my readers will think that 07:10 is anything other than a late start to the day but I'm used to getting out of my warm bed some time between 08:00 and 08:30. For those of you shocked by that, bear in mind I am rarely in bed before midnight. Anyway, it was a courier delivering a large parcel. I hope he's getting overtime for unsocial hours.

Even at that ungodly hour, I was too inquisitive to pass up the opportunity to see what was inside the parcel. A cornucopia of delights! First of all, though, back to my warm bed for another hour's sleep. My heating doesn't come on until 07:30, after all. But I couldn't sleep, so made a cuppa and re-examined my loot.

Best of all was a card from my grandson

but also a new jigsaw puzzle. It's a Death Star - fans of Star Wars will be aware of that monstrous entity; I wish I had one in my Civilization game, I have to make do with Giant Death Robots.

Most intriguing of all, the puzzle is double sided! How is that going to work, for goodness sake? I see problems ahead. Problem #2 is that it's too large for my regular puzzle table - so I have now ordered a circular table of the correct size from Mr Amazon! Don't worry, this has an upside - I can continue with Van Gogh (decent progress is being made with that, since you ask) on my puzzle table whilst setting up the Death Star on my new table.

The Death Star is of course a sphere. And that set me thinking about spheres. Which I know is weird but thinking outside the box is the lifeblood of bloggers.

Now balls are spheres but you'll be relieved to know that I'm not going to talk about football. No, I am into much bigger spheres than those. Last night I watched the movie First Man, about Neil Armstrong and the years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission. It's a decent enough couple of hours if you're looking for some entertainment. Some of the time it's a bit tense, as they travel through the ionosphere and the troposphere. See, spheres! Concentrate, people.

Which of those spheres surrounding the earth is nearer to us? It's the troposphere, in which we all live. Clouds, rain, snow, that sort of stuff. The lowest part is the boundary layer, the earth's surface.

Further out from the troposphere is the stratosphere. This extends outwards a further 50km from the troposphere. The ozone in this layer absorbs ultraviolet light from the sun and prevents us from getting skin cancers and the earth from getting overheated. Or at least it would do if we weren't slowly destroying it with our nasty aerosols.

Then there's the mesosphere, thermosphere and the exosphere. I feel a home schooling science lesson coming on. Taken together, these three make up the ionosphere. It contains free electrons; without them there wouldn't be any radio waves and we couldn't hear Listen With Mother. Or use GPS.

The ionosphere is also where man made satellites orbit the earth. As of 1 April 2020, there were 2,666 of them. That sounds a lot - are they all really necessary? You'd think they would crash into each other. Want to know which countries have launched satellites? I have just the thing for you:

No-one wants to miss out, obviously.

So Nigel, once we get to the edge of the exosphere, are we nearly at the moon? As you see, the exosphere stretches to around 400km above the earth. Further out, the outer regions, up to 16,000km above the earth, make up the magnetosphere. The moon, however, is 384,400km away. So no.

Thinking about the universe is why I couldn't get back to sleep at 07:15 today. I need an afternoon nap!

Seven pieces

Progress report on my Starry Night jigsaw puzzle. Today I fitted in seven pieces. Other than the first day making the borders, this is a daily record. Doesn't sound impressive? Believe me, this puzzle is a nightmare. No pun intended.

So far I have completed 194 of the 1,000 pieces. So 806 to go. At seven a day that would take 

days, meaning I would finish the puzzle on 2 May. However, there are many days when I don't do any pieces; I look at the jigsaw and give myself the choice of three options:

1. Persist until the end
2. Pack the puzzle up and tell MiceElf (who gave me the  puzzle) that I finished it and forgot to take a photo
3. Invite my friend Tony to bring his dog Lily round for a cup of tea, which will undoubtedly result in Lily leaping onto the coffee table and scattering the pieces all over the room (as happened once before)

Of course, maths would tell you that, for each piece added, the time taken to position the next piece would be increasingly less (because there is one space less to fill). So maybe before May!

So far, I have continued to pursue option 1. In my Cursing Van Gogh post in October 2020, I announced that "this puzzle is going to take me until Christmas to complete". I didn't say which Christmas.

7 Pieces is an album by American jazz composer and arranger Jimmy Giuffre in 1959. I couldn't find a recording of this album but here's Jimmy on tenor sax a year earlier:

I just love those harmonies.

There is a series of two books, the series called Seven Pieces, by Helena Field. It is described as a "A Reverse Harem Fantasy ". I can't imagine what that means. 

Cursing Van Gogh

 Van Gogh's Starry Night is my current jigsaw puzzle.

It's apparently the view from his room in an asylum. It's dark [duh Nigel; it's night time!]. Lots of, presumably, stars. A moon which looks remarkably like the sun. Which after all is just a star, albeit a big one. To us on earth. A huge black obelisk which turns out to be a cypress tree. Partly blocking the view.

According to an (unattributed) article in vangoghgallery.com, "Blue dominates the painting, blending hills into the sky. The little village lays at the base in the painting in browns, greys, and blues." On close inspection, all the jigsaw pieces have subtle markings.

I cannot see into Vincent's mind when he paints this but I can see it from a jigsaw puzzler's perspective. It's a nightmare. Here's a blue piece; it could go anywhere in 60% of the picture. Likewise a yellow: 30%. The rest black/dark brown with no redeeming features.

How I am yearning for some bold colour contrasts; a yellow door, a green tiled roof, some black and white cows. Dear Vincent, jigsawers don't appreciate subtle! Or blending. Or browns, greys, and blues.

Oh dear, I remind myself of Kristina of Sweden's disapproval quote in Civilization 6: "I suppose you think art is great when it ties a room together, you philistine." Have I become that person?

This puzzle is going to take me until Christmas to complete. Not necessarily Christmas 2020. I shall persevere, mostly because I feel sorry for Vincent.

It's done

 

My latest jigsaw puzzle. Finished.

Or not. Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed one piece - ONE! - missing.

Was I sold the puzzle incomplete? Or have I lost the piece whilst shuffling around the pieces during the last few weeks? Obviously the smart money is on the latter.

Do I now turn my house upside down in an effort to locate the 1,000th piece or will it by now have disappeared into the depths of my Dyson vacuum cleaner (which, funnily enough has been sounding a bit off lately)?

Blooming Paris. Blooming jigsaws.

UPDATE: Having searched every square inch of floor in my lounge, to no avail, I dismantled the Dyson in the hope that the errant piece might have found its way into its tubes. The bad news is that no jigsaw piece was found; the good news is that the Dyson is no longer sounding funny.

Low boredom threshold and previous transitory enthusiasms

I told you recently about my brief reunion with the pleasure of bird watching. That set me thinking about what my bookshelves remind me of previous short-term enthusiasms.

As I sit here writing this, I can see a large , picturesque book "The Tropical Marine Aquarium". I had one once but the guppies, angelfish, mollies and the like didn't live very long, and some fish enjoyed (too much, in my opinion) eating the others. BTW (for those, like me, over 70, that means By The Way) whilst researching this post (yes I do research for these meaningless ramblings) I discovered guppyexpert.com, which has a page "20 Best Guppy Fish Tank Mates". Wow, the things people know!

If you are thinking of having an aquarium, you should know that they require a lot of effort - cleaning, checking temperature and oxygenation, etc. - and all the fish do is swim about aimlessly and ungratefully. Occasionally a mummy fish (temporary, as female guppies can apparently change sex - very woke) will have babies, which the other fish in the tank immediately treat as a new source of food. Ugh.

Next to that book is "50 walks to country pubs". Well thumbed but no use at the moment, obviously. If there was a book "50 aimless walks within 100 metres of your house", that might be relevant.

Then there's a whole shelf of cookery books. What are they for? Did some previous owner of this house leave them? I shouldn't mock, as I think one or other of my sons (maybe both) gave me some when I moved to Cornwall, in the forlorn expectation that I would be spending my retirement in my kitchen. Thanks, guys.

"Supper won't take long" is one book, by Lindsey Bareham. Too true, I gobble my food like a Trojan (i.e. inside a horse). An obviously second hand "Pakistan Cookery Book" is next to it. Opening it for the first time ever, I discover 185 recipes for such treats as Dahi Baras, Suji Cake and Kachories. Mm, delicious. And a print of an internet page "How to Cook Beetroot". Wait, you COOK beetroot? You mean it doesn't come out of a jar?

A book on Mentoring sits alongside Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape". Diversity.

Then there is a huge "Chronicle of the 20th Century". A relic of my early Cornwall days when  I used to go to auctions. And brought home piles of tat and ancient books, to adorn my house. Ugh again.

And get this - this jigsaw...

...has been on that table for three years! You can see the picture has lots of (similar) blues and prolonged exposure to the sun, by a south facing window, has faded many of the pieces so the whole thing is a puzzle - er, yes Nigel, a puzzle duh!

Will I ever finish it? I'm probably not THAT bored.

I'm a dabbler - I try something, get tired of it, move on to something else. Like yoga. And croquet. Spotify. Netflix. Probably - at some time in the distant future - blogging.

Not to worry, there's a new computer game coming out tomorrow which I have pre-ordered. That should keep me going for a .... month?