Puzzle progress

Just like the first lockdown where we rediscovered puzzling,  I started puzzling again in the 2nd lockdown early november during our vacation week. I am writing "I" since Kabouter has lost his interest a bit. 

Since November I am working on two puzzles at the same time.  

Christmaspuzzle in the Ardennes

In the Ardennes I started a christmas mood puzzle.  After the house which is rather easy and quickly made, I am struggling to make progress on the rest.  This puzzle which dates back from my childhood is painfully more difficult than I remember. 

Since we are only limited time in the Ardennes and since I've positioned myself in a rather dark corner of the attic (squeezed between the children's railroads) which makes it almost impossible to continue to work very well late in the evening, it looks like this one will occupy me well until early 2021.  That's fine, I am not rushed.  

The 7 wonders of the world: #1 Rio de Janeiro

With the foresight of a long difficult winter in this pandemic with a lot of mandatory time at home, I ordered at the end of October a puzzle box of the 7 world wonders before all puzzles are sold-out again.  Yep puzzle companies must be soaring, I am clearly not the only one who's back into puzzling. As a matter of fact quite some of my friends are puzzling too.   My best friend also bought this set and now we are virtually puzzling together on the same ones.   

So in the 2nd week of November we started off with Rio de Janeiro.  Much too difficult to catch Kabouter's attention (although I discovered a little virtual Pokémon with puzzle interest once). I found myself taking up too much space in the living room so I moved up a floor to our little mezzanine near the book closet.   The disadvantage is that I don't quickly spend 5-10 minutes puzzling when I take a small break from work during the day as I tended to do in the Spring. 

Since also we spent some weekends in the Ardennes working on the other puzzle, my friend beat me on this puzzle by 2 weeks :p.  That's fine.   When I was about to finish and only had some blue sky left, it became painfully clear that I had lost 2 pieces.  Fortunately a big clean-up of the vacuum content made the 2 pieces re-appear and I could properly truly finish a puzzle. Big relief, it would feel quite unsatisfactory to leave it with 2 holes. 

The return of the 2 missing pieces

The box of the 7 world wonders was amazingly cheap. Really a good deal to buy: we got 7 puzzles for the regular price of one usual puzzle (16 euro). We were actually suspicious beforehand as it looked too good to be true but we took the risk. 

I do notice that the box has a clear quality difference over the previous puzzles that I have from the same brand King.  The pieces are clearly thinner and in my first puzzle they were often bended (or bended easily while working). Also the carton layer at the back was often not cut properly or a bit lose. This results in a puzzle that feels/looks wobbly and if the pieces are so thin it makes it a bit harder to truly fit them.  But all in all I find it a really fair deal for this price and it gives us amazing puzzling time for almost no money.  My friend didn't have the issue with the pieces so easily bending and I've now started the 2nd puzzle and that seems a bit stronger quality so it is a bit variable. 

The 7 wonders of the world: #2 Chichen Itza

After finishing the first puzzle over 5 weeks I took a tiny break but since I needed this week some quiet time on my own alone with my emotions and thoughts, it was a good moment to launch the 2nd one at home. In the meantime my friend had already finished another puzzle and can now join me again virtually on working on Chichen Itza as well.