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With Sophia’s coming out and another recent reduction in our numbers, we decided to take back ownership of the dining room table.
A box atop it had been one of Sophia’s safe places for a long time.
Not that we planned to begin taking meals at the table, having no intention of changing our habits!
We had something else in mind.
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If we’d not invited cats into our lives, no doubt we would have been eating off plates on our laps anyway, but having animals in the house certainly does modify one’s routines.
Needlework and knitting were promptly abandoned as balls of wool or twine and things like that were far too great a temptation to playful cats.
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It’s hard to believe now, but I did at one time at least attempt to cook and I recall that I was endeavouring once to make pastry.
Realising that Kina would interfere, I erected a barrier to keep him from the kitchen but taking one scornful look, he sailed over the top and onto my work surface, stepping in flour I had scattered and then trod little white footprints all over my dark blue carpet.
Not that I can blame Kina for my unenthusiastic views of cooking.
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As you may imagine, jigsaw puzzle pieces are another great temptation for cats and without access to a table, we’d never thought about such a thing in any case. So, I’m not sure where the notion came from, but suddenly we had our table back and it happens to have a removable cover which offers perfect protection for a puzzle in progress.
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We had only talked about it, but one day I found myself charged with obtaining a suitable one.
How I was I ever going to choose from the thousands on offer? It wasn’t long before this pleasing image presented itself and it would certainly be a challenge!
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With a top and bottom almost identical, we thought that even the frame would not be easy, so we were quite pleased with ourselves when we got it quickly in place.
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Except for Little Man, the cats are of an age now where they are not interested.
Lily and Dee Dee jumped up to take a look at this strange new preoccupation of ours, but quickly returned to their own favourite activity – napping.
Little Man is busy concentrating on other crimes which I may disclose at a later date.
Stealing puzzle pieces would be preferable…
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Jigsaw puzzles are a sedentary activity, good for people with mobility issues – or so I thought.
But searching for pieces, I twisted my head back and forth aggravating neck pain.
Better if I stood up, but then I developed pain in my spine from leaning over.
The next hindrance was more serious – my eyesight. Working with the light colours and especially those pieces that had some sort of pattern on them wasn’t too bad, but once we’d got most of those in place we were left with all those dark bits and I found that I was having great difficulty telling one from the other.
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We tried improving the light, but it wasn’t much help so for the past couple of days, I haven’t been able to contribute a great deal.
Still, I am enjoying it. The last jigsaw I made any contribution to was in 1957! It was an image of the California redwoods which was also quite a challenge.
That puzzle was in the home of a friend and I didn’t get to see it completed.
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We wondered about the origin of jigsaws and Grant suggested that it was all the way back in Roman times, with the mosaics they created. Mosaic isn’t quite the same thing, but perhaps that is where the idea came from.
According to my very limited research, the first commercial jigsaw was created in 1760 by John Spilsbury, a London cartographer and engraver. “His design took world maps, and cut out the individual nations in order for them to be reassembled by students as a geographical teaching aid.” (from Wikipedia)
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So what is it about jigsaws that is so satisfying? I decided to interrogate the internet and this is what I found:
It can improve your IQ.
It can improve short-term memory,
It exercises both sides of the brain.
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It improves visual-spatial reasoning.
Teaches attention to detail.
Decreases stress.
Increases productivity.
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People who do jigsaws lead longer, healthier lives and are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
Jigsaws strengthen the family dynamic.
“According to research”.
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Without identifying the researcher, I can certainly see how most of that might be true.
Taking a long view, you could view it as an allegory.
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Human life is a jigsaw puzzle.
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When we are born we are that blank surface. Through infancy and early childhood, we quickly develop a frame into which experiences and education fill blocks of information and memory.
Consider the people in your life as puzzle pieces
With maturity, we may find that certain pieces don’t seem to fit. Perhaps they belong in a different puzzle. They may make us uncomfortable.
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As time goes on, puzzle pieces go missing and there are fewer additions. With old age the frame may begin to fall away.
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Grant brought this to mind very poignantly recently when he likened the loss of Muffin as another puzzle piece gone. He was right. Our personal puzzle is full of missing pieces.
Each time I hear cat claws on the floor behind my chair, I look down expecting to see her blue eyes gazing up at me.
She was by my side constantly those last months. She was such a big part of my day.
We miss her so much.
I never had the patience to do jigsaws, nor the necessary determination to complete them. I was quite astounded that you didn’t get a cat jigsaw though. Something like a whole litter of black and white kittens would be a complex puzzle, I am sure.
Best wishes, Pete.
Thank you, Carolyn, for your interesting post, with the history of the jigsaw, the philosophical thoughts on human life, with excellent, as always, photography, and portraits of your cats!
Joanna
A lovely allegorical jigsaw journey. Our charity shops (thrift shops), of which there are many, all have lots of jigsaw puzzles for sale, normally for about £4 each ($5.43)
I love the pictures of your darling cats in the garden! Oh yes, we also enjoy building puzzles. When we had our spaniels in the house, there was always a puzzle piece (or three) missing. We later found it in their beds and in the garden 😁. Thank you for the beautiful comparison between puzzles and humans – I completely agree. Sweet Muffin with her exceptionally beautiful eyes – I miss her too in your photos.
Gorgeous photo of Sophia!
A sad comment about Muffin and the piece of the puzzle. I haven’t done a puzzle in an age but used to love doing them.