My daughter showed me the joy in jigsaw puzzles – now it’s the only way I know how to relax |
When my daughter first started kindergarten many years ago, she’d walk into the room and head straight for the puzzle table. While other kids would scoop up a ball from the basket and rush through the double doors to the back yard, she was strictly a jigsaw person.
I don’t remember teaching her how to attack a jigsaw, she just knew. She’d start with hunting out the four corner pieces, move on to the edges, and then concentrate on building the picture, filling out blocks of colour or pattern. She worked methodically through the stack of puzzles one by one, and when she’d finish doing them, then she’d go outside and play.
I’d never been a jigsaw puzzle person until I had children, but the delight I witnessed in my daughter meant I started buying them from garage sales whenever I had the chance.
Second-hand jigsaws are obviously a risky purchase because they often have pieces missing, but mostly we’d muddle through the boxes and once we’d finish them, I’d return them to an op shop with the lids taped shut, so somebody else could experience the........