It’s no puzzle why jigsaws are A-list pastime...
WHEN considering hobbies, I used to put jigsaws slightly ahead of darts and watching paint dry. Not any more. I have begun to understand the attraction of a 1,000 piece puzzle during months of lockdowns and restrictions. You can become a sedentary traveller without leaving your front room and explore Barnard Castle whilst staying within Covid rules.
The whole world is available to be explored, from Blackpool to Bermuda, from Knaresborough to
Nepal (and Barnard Castle), as well as pets, wildlife, pop music, rock legends, history and heroes.
Fancy producing a Van Gogh? Try the 1,500-piece Starry Night. Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman was so proud of his achievement he live-streamed himself completing it.
Jackman is one of many high-profile puzzlers who enjoy the challenge but also the solitude and absorption it induces. Ronnie Wood does them when on tour with the Stones, which is an image to savour. “They’re good for the brain,” he says.
Fatboy Slim, Bill Gates, Sir Patrick Stewart and Her Majesty the Queen are all exponents.
Fans have said they can help ease the pangs of loneliness and depression, as well as be relaxing and pleasurable.
They can also take you places you could not otherwise visit, like emotive villages and rural scenes from 1950s England created in the imagination of the artist who painted the picture.
Many capture a nostalgic and idyllic national past that never really existed.
Still, a little idyllic diversion never hurt anybody, and it seems an extremely pleasant option to immerse the mind in such pastoral scenes of peaceful times past, as a way of escaping the isolation and worry of the pandemic of today.
Ronnie Wood does them when on tour with the Stones, which is an
image to savour