Going to pieces over jigsaw filling the kitchen table

It’s been taking up half the kitchen table since The Student came back to enjoy-endure lockdown from the comfort-constraints of the family home. A 1,000 piece jigsaw was very quickly started in a great flurry of excitement, probably just at the stage when she realised it would provide a good excuse from having to play endless board games with me.

Roughly two thirds of the puzzle has been completed since lockdown started. After the strong start, the ever-present jigsaw has gone from being a challenge to a chore and now to a sort of permanent installation taking up valuable space on the kitchen table.

The Student’s emotions regarding the jigsaw seem to have been somewhat extreme, ranging from joy as a particularly tricky edge was joined up to despair that so much of the picture is exactly the same colour, with no distinguishing features, to the recent declaration “I might just send off for an easier one, this is driving me insane”.

No-one else is allowed to help or even to make helpful suggestions. “It’s just something I have to do by myself” is the explanation for this, as though the jigsaw puzzle were Everest.

In the meantime, it stands as a reminder of hope from those far-off days when we thought we’d have to keep ourselves amused at home for a couple of weeks. I’ve become used to picking up pieces from the floor before they disappear up the vacuum cleaner and wiping round the edges of the unfinished puzzle before we sit down to eat.

Occasionally The Student will approach the jigsaw and fit a few pieces before issuing a torrent of bad words then storming off again.

When I tentatively broached the subject of reclaiming the kitchen table, she claimed it’s not that she’s unable to finish the puzzle, it’s that she’s unwilling, in the way that she’s unable to watch the finale of certain TV series she enjoys – because that would mean there’s nothing left to look forward to.

So there it remains. A permanent reminder of the lengths people will go to rather than play Scrabble with me.

“Emotions seem to have been somewhat extreme