MPPP XXXXCIIV

Another fairly leisurely start to an MPP morning as my drive to the hall is definitely the shortest (by several hours!) yet the car park is already half-full when I get there. Turns out there’s an antenatal class in the hall next door, so we shuffle our cars Tokyo-style. Phil’s beaten me to it and it doesn’t take long for the gang to start arriving: Steve’s dragged Mike over from London, Chris and Chloe and Dale are all reasonably local and then Ali and the girls arrive from not that far away from Steve… and then there’s a positive cascade of puzzlers arriving from just down the road (Sam & Dale) and super-far-afield (Frank, Fraser and Kevin).

The puzzles are unpacked and there are two conspicuous plastic crates on a table in the centre of the hall with several hundred little pieces of printed PLA in them… two copies (plus some spare bits) of Oskar’s 840-piece Big Ball so that we can have a gently competitive assembly at some point during the course of the day… (Yes, I spent a couple of weeks printing them… each ball was just shy of 2 spools… and yes, sometimes I do question my life decisions!)

Ali has brought along several crates from Assisi for me – some of them empty, some of them filled with puzzles and books… oh, and a giant copy of my exchange puzzle that’s topped-and-tailed with Ali and Steve’s… that was never going to fit in my luggage. Thanks mate – you’re a life-saver!

Chris has brought along a prototype from Doog and I really enjoy fiddling with that – when I manage to get it apart, I’m gob-smacked by the simplicity of the innards – and then even more confused when I try and work out what the reset position needs to be. I suspect I end up spending longer trying to un-solve it than I have solving it… I send Doog some suitably encouraging words afterwards, just in case he needs further encouragement. Phil and Andrew seem to be big fans as well – which says a lot!

Somewhere around late morning I manage to encourage a couple of groups of people to have a bash at assembling the Big Balls pseudo-competitively… Dan and Chris decide on a strategy of organise-and-then-assemble, spending ages sorting all of the bits into piles and setting about building identical sub-assemblies from piles of pieces, adding to them only when one pile of pieces is exhausted. Steve, Mike and Chloe on the other hand favour the dive-in-and-just-build-it approach. They screech into an early lead, but some doubt creeps in when I give them a helpful(?) map of the pieces and they find several pentagons in their structure when the map shows only hexagons… the crisis of confidence is rapidly dismissed although the opposing team keeps asking them if that’s really wise… several hours and a spot of lunch later, Chris and Dan’s methodical approach turns out to be quite a bit more efficient and they are declared victors… so Steve’s team began to seek alternative strategies for winning, including at one point trying to become the first team to complete the ball while having a puzzler inside it – at least I think that’s what they were tying to do… I was too afraid to ask in case that made me complicit.  

Kevin has brought along the imminent crop of Pelikan puzzles and several of us have a bash at them… I really like Surround Wil – it’s a nice level of fun puzzling! Fatomino sees several challengers step up to the plate but I don’t recall seeing anyone claiming victory – I’m sure that just means I wasn’t around at the precise moment I should have been… not that it's a really hard new puzzle form Volker!

Tamsin spends a while working her way through The Wonderbox of Alice and she seemed to enjoy it over an extended period, not particularly helped by my not being able to remember anything useful about it whenever she asked me for a hint.

The orderly queue for the pig rolls did not disappoint and lunch was the usual banter-rich experience.

Fraser had brought along a 3D printed copy of his Chained box that he ended up gifting me – and in spite of several attempts both at MPP and subsequently, said-box remains well-chained. Thanks Fraser!

Rich had brought along several of his own designs for folks to play with as well as a number of 3D prints of some less-available little packers – those ended up being pretty popular with several folks taking the opportunity to solve some hard-to-find puzzles. Elbow Room ended up taking me a LOT longer than it should have, but it was a really delightful solve.

Rich has a go on my copy of Doog’s latest box and he literally races through it… even the bit I’ve been stuck on for weeks since IPP. My brain has clearly gone to mush as I actually ask him for a nudge on that bit and I find I still cannot solve it afterwards… perhaps it’s time to start restricting myself to simpler puzzles?

Mike had a copy of his latest award-winning design – a tray-packer / vanishing area puzzle that he’s distilled down to a pretty efficient, horribly challenging puzzle. Several puzzlers tried and most ended up just being happy that they could return it to the unsolved assembly with the crumb outside the frame. I spent a long time getting to know it before heading off to Assisi and can confirm it is an absolute sod!

Stephen dropped in for a couple of hours in the afternoon and seemed to enjoy being able to fiddle with some puzzles among friends for the first time in a couple of years as a result of the arrival of his first son a couple of years ago – good to see you again, mate!

Later in the afternoon the Big Balls ended up getting subjected to more and more enthusiastic playing across the hall. At first the kids were having a whale of a time rolling them back and forth, but then the bigger boys decided that looked like fun and Steve managed to find the precise strength of kick that would just manage to partially disassemble said ball… now you know why I printed some spare bits!

Sometime after 5pm we packed everything up and headed up to Puzzling Times HQ – along the way discovering just how many cars a Big Ball won’t fit into, but “delighted” that it would fit into the front seat of mine… so much for my sneaky plan to find takers for them so I wouldn’t end up with another huge ungainly puzzle that I need to find a spot for in one of the puzzle caves… at least Ali took one of them!

There were some deep philosophical conversations in the kitchen where the world was duly put to rights, a large stack of pizzas were demolished, several Karakuri boxes were enjoyed, my Angel Box was solved and then (properly) reset and Rich insisted on solving my copy of Juno’s House which Ali had given me earlier in the day. I shouldn’t say that I was pleased when he didn’t just solve it straight-away, but I suspect that after a week of playing with it myself, I’m no further than he was after about half an hour with it… this one’s a toughie!

Thanks to everyone who made the trek to Barnt Green for another grand day’s puzzling with my friends. 

 

Summer

Doog & Radek’s new baby dropped at IPP in Assisi – the latest Demonticon made its debut on Doog’s table alongside a collection of other Demonticons and a small pile of Doog’s legendary boxes. I’d decided I wasn’t going to snatch an early copy and the handful of Summers didn’t last long. I made a meal of the fact that they were all sold out when I was chatting to Doog and he duly dropped Radek a note and asked him to hook me up with a copy…

A day after I got back home, Radek’s new website was launched complete with Summers waiting for new homes… so I ordered one straight away. Somehow Radek managed to sort out some super-speedy couriers to deliver my copy just over two days later – I was more than a little gob-smacked with the delivery speed, and when I opened the package I found not only a shiny copy of Summer, but also a neat little lit-up Demonticon display – Thanks Radek! That’s going to look great behind all the Demonticons on my shelf…

Summer clearly likes all things horological – the clock hands being a major give-away, along with what could just be a loupe in the right eye. The hands spin like they’re on bearings and there’s not a not to see or explore… but explore we must.

I found something interesting to manipulate and produced what I might call a tool, although I struggled to find something elegant to do with it… having that tool seems to have freed up some movement and I find a sneaky way to make that work for me and I soon have Summer cracked open like a vintage pocket watch.

Inside things get very interesting and most and tools become available – some of them have clear uses straight away and the progress comes thick and fast until I find myself looking for a specific tool that I don’t think I’ve found yet… until it dawns on me and I have to laugh out lout when I clock what the guys have done. (Doog credits Radek for that little bit of trickery and I love the fact that he’s caught the designer out with this additional little bit of obfuscation!)

Finding the final treasure is an absolute treat and I’m left marvelling at the incredible machining on this Demonticon – the finishing is superb and the fit is quite literally sublime – the guys have their manufacturing dialled in really superbly… I cannot recommend this one highly enough.

Summer is definitely a goodie!

IPP 43 - parte terza

Next morning I’m up with the sparrows again for another early morning meeting as we run through some of the planning and presentations for our next IPP… when we’re happy with that. I head up to the room to grab two suitcases full of my exchange puzzles and find my trusty exchange assistant already waiting for me in the ball room. We set up 100 wonky towers and get prepped for the exchange before helping a few others get their wares arranged.

Just after the start of the exchange Ali calls me over for a quick three-way exchange between himself, me and Steve since they’ve made them all so we can dispense with some of the formalities… or so he said… turned out it was a bit of a ruse and they’ve prepared a giant version of my own exchange and topped-and-tailed it with their exchanges… the sight of this enormous structure causes me to collapse with laughter that continues until my stomach literally hurts and I’m crying with laughter.

The rest of the exchange isn’t nearly as painful and I have a great time seeing old friends and chatting about our respective exchange puzzles.

I’m thoroughly delighted when one of the Design Competition puzzles that I really like and am hoping to be able to purchase a copy of the next day turns out to be an exchange puzzle, so Mike literally gives me a copy!

Brian’s exchange puzzle looks like a miniature version of the Rialto bridge and he’s challenged us to find a bunch of things inside it but it looks like there’s literally no place to hides any of these things… we’re all glad his retirement hasn’t got in the way of him making some superb new puzzles!

By about lunchtime we’ve complete about 80% of the exchanges and I head up to the room for a salami and cheese roll that Gill’s left in the fridge for me… Louis has ordered one of the box lunches and ends up having a sandwich from his room as well – mini-fridges are very useful at IPPs!

I also end up having a bit of a meeting over lunch and Nick has to bat away a couple of eager exchangers for a short while before we head back into the throng for the final 20%... the last few exchanges are pretty efficient as we start running out of time and the hotel staff need us out of the room.

There are a bunch of puzzles in the haul that I’m really looking forward to playing with when I get home. Louis has done an amazing job as usual, even wrangling a huge DSLR so that we have a set of canned photos of puzzlers and their exchange puzzles for the souvenir book – thanks Louis – I wouldn’t be able to do these exchanges without you, mate!

I haul the haul up to the room for the obligatory puzzles-on-the-bed shot and it looks well-impressive…

I need to have a few conversations around the hotel and don’t manage to get to Sándor and Hiren’s presentation, but I do manage to make it to the origami workshop where an Italian master teaches us to make an interesting assembly supported by a translator.

There’s a bit of time between the workshop and the buses to the golf club for the banquet, so I grab a shower and feel much better for it… we meet in the lobby after the first round of buses has left and we’re treated to some fizzy water in the bar while those on the first bus are gently roasted in the afternoon sun at the golf club for their aperitifs.

We take the last bus over to the banquet where there are a few more drinks and Toby shouts at us on the way into the venue. We’re well toward the back end of the queue and find ourselves in what feels like the spillover end of the room – although it very much isn’t as we have plenty of food stations and when it comes time for the entertainment we get theatre-style seating front and centre for the magic show.

Gill and a few folks leave a bit earlier and grab a cab back to the hotel and I take pics of the entertainment, right up until our magician takes a bit of a spill during his walking on wine sequence and gets a huge thump on the head in the resulting attempted recovery. (His wife lets us know he’s fine the next day.) It’s a fun show with some quick-changes and transformations and an excellent chapeaugraphy bit – I can’t remember when I last saw someone take on this art… I’m not sure how many others in the audience appreciate the historical angle of this one.

After the entertainment Marc and I head out to find a bus, via the espresso machine and manage to find one of the last seats on the first bus round so we get back to the hotel at a not-unreasonable hour.

I crash… big time.

Next morning I don’t have any meetings so I get to lie in a bit(!) before grabbing some breakfast and finding the queue for the puzzle party… there’s a long snake of a queue so I choose to have a chat with Shane and Rainer who gives me a big old lump of brass when I give him an envelope of cash… it’s a great start to the puzzle party and I haven’t even gotten into the queue to get into the room yet…

When the queue evaporates, I wander in and find Doog and Laura right in the entrance so I have to cast an eye over his table… noticing that some of his boxes have already been liberated and he has a few of his collaborations with Radek, including Summer, the newest of the Demonticons. I decide not to grab one and instead leave them for other more desperate puzzlers, knowing that Radek will have them in his shop in the next few days anyway… later on in the day I wind them up when I see they’ve sold out and Doog is furiously apologetic for not putting one aside for me (when I hadn’t asked him to!). I think he realises I’m just winding him up, although he does tee up Radek to hook me up soon afterwards! (Thanks guys! ;-) )

Ethel is running a few silent auctions for some special puzzles from Laurie’s collection and I place a few bids on them. Most of them get overtaken but I’m delighted at the end of the party to find that I’ve acquired another of Laurie’s Trevor Wood puzzles – something a little special for the horde.

Perry has run a wonderfully orderly process for selling this year’s baked goods called Tiramistero – I’m one of the lucky ones who manages to secure a copy and when I roll up at his table one of his sons greets me with a clipboard and asks if I have a reservation with them… my puzzle arrives and I hand over another of those envelopes with cash in it… then I’m forced to partake in some of their wonderful chocolates while I thank Perry for deciding on this year’s process after the scrummage in Houston. The cake this year is a(nother) thing of absolute beauty.

I spend some time chatting with Yavuz and pick up a couple of gorgeous new designs from him before finding a new Endo-san puzzle on the Torito table so I pick up a couple of copies for Ali and Steve in the hope that they haven’t already done the same thing. (They haven’t and they’re delighted.)

The Monkeys do a pretty solid trade in both their old and their new puzzles, with many puzzlers adding a copy of Gary Foshee’s Transparent Lock to their collections.

I join Gill for another sandwich in the room before a bit more shopping… a couple of boxes of mini Hanayamas and I agree to pay a deposit for the next IPP, failing general pestilence I’m probably going to be going!

I don’t manage to make it to any of the afternoon lectures or workshops as I get sucked into making some late changes to a presentation and working out some of the finer points of some of those presentations during the evening’s awards dinner. Nick and I get our respective presentations teed up on the hotel’s laptop and make sure they all run properly before waiting for the stampede when the doors are opened.

As it turns out there’s a fairly orderly arrival without the traditional barging in to grab a good table up front. Gill and the gang secure a table for us about halfway back and I join them. There’s plenty of wine and water again but I decide it’s too far to trek to the bar for a coke this time.

The food is great and the service is well-different from the restaurant’s normal standard – we’re delighted. After dinner our host invites Nick to present the Design Competition awards and he runs through them while I grab snaps of the designers in the room receiving their awards in person – some of them are really delighted – Yavuz is delighted to be given a Tom Lensch copy of his own design for winning an award.

There’s a super fun, pacey presentation from Marc on the next party and he makes it sound like a brilliant excuse for getting together with our friends again next year… just in case anyone needed any further encouragement. Teddy and Iwahiro confirm that that next party after that will be in Japan and that they’re hoping to hold the party in a slightly cooler month than our traditional middle-of-the-summer-heat. That seems to be a popular choice as well!

After that, Nick and Iwahiro present Frans with a thank-you gift from IPP for his many years of service on the Board – he gets an extended standing ovation from the entire room before Nick gives him a custom compound burr from Stephan Baumegger.

After the awards our host gets her team up on stage to receive a team gift and take a shot of something Italian (mine’s a fruit juice, Italian of course!) – I’m a bit surprised to be included when all I’ve done is take a few snaps of the dinners, but hey – free puzzles!

After a few more speeches from our host I get to present a couple of Nob Yoshigahara Awards to George and Oskar for their tremendous contributions to the puzzling community over the past several decades. When I get to the podium I’m confused at the sight of a new laptop in situ with a Whatsapp chat page open and no sign of the hotel’s laptop with my presentation on it. I decide I’m better off doing without the presentations given the challenges of getting it all working earlier in the evening. The confetti cannons ensure that nobody sleeps through my speech and both gents receive a wonderfully warm round of applause. George is so moved he decides he can’t summon up a speech, but Oskar manages to conjure up something off the cuff in the manner of a wonderfully accomplished public speaker – in his second language!

After the awards I have the pleasure of presenting our host with a gift that we know she doesn’t already have in her collection as Stephan describes what he’s done to make her a truly unique host gift… it seems to hit the spot and she’s visibly moved – great job Stephan!

We have one last round of songs from Luca, our tenor-for-the-night before the confetti cannons rain down Italian flags on us for one last time and we start saying our goodbyes – the hardest part of any IPP.

I lose track of Gill and need to grab something from Marc’s room and I’m surprised to find that Gill isn’t in the room so I head back down to the ball room where she’s still saying her goodbyes… so we spend a while longer chatting to folks and making plans to meet again next year.

There’s a heap of packing still to do and we’re well into Monday before we finally hit the sack…

Next morning sees the final bit of packing before we order a cab and grab some breakfast.

We check out and our cab arrives a little early so we head to the station where we find Anna, Rick and Mary-Anne already there so we join them on the earlier train to Foligno, reducing the risk of missing our connecting train to Tiburtina… the only real hassle is wrangling the heavy luggage, but given the contents are largely my fault, I’m in no place to complain!

We manage to make the platform change at Tiburtina just in time and get to FCO exactly when we’d hoped to… automobiles and trains completed, we check in the bags for the flight to Heathrow and brace ourselves for the trials of the new immigration systems that have just been introduced… we needn’t have worried as we’re through in less in than 15 minutes and have plenty of time for a decent lunch and one last gelato before the flight homeward.

Our bags are a bit slow coming out, but that might just be because we quite literally raced through immigration. The drive home is super smooth and we collect the dogs and settle in for a reasonably early night in our own bed after another great IPP with our friends from all around the world…

IPP 43 - seconda parte

Rox gives us a lecture on what to expect on our trip to the WPC the next day and there are plenty of questions and answers until the deafening applause from the rear of the room signals the end of that session and dinner time.

In spite of the warning from others who’ve been here for a few days already we decide to try the hotel restaurant – in fairness we have a large table but we struggle to attract the attention of a waiter until Jo literally rugby-tackles one of them only for us to discover that he’s not entrusted with the magic order pad so we switch our attentions to said waiter…. We eventually manage to order, but there’s a farcical series of events that sees Nick getting his starter after his main course, several main courses getting substituted and my total inability to grab a Coke Zero… we still enjoy a fun evening together anyway and it’s great catching up with Doog!

Next morning there’s an absolute throng of people in the breakfast room but I manage to grab some brekkie while catching up with Simon, Tom and Dor…. The room magically empties on the stroke of 8am as the buses begin loading up for the trip to the WPC… so I get to finish my breakfast at a more leisurely pace… I see off some of the buses before heading down for a second round of pastries and coffees with Deidre, Gill, Nigel and Steve. We chat for a while and then I head off to Panicale with Steve… I’m navigating and we sort of make it there without incident although we need to get Benny to park Steve’s rental car because it’s a pretty tight spot!

Ali hooks us up with our wristbands to allow us entry into the WPC and we start chatting with our mates… it doesn’t take long for the allure of the food vans to take hold and I enjoy a wonderful hot dog in the park across the road with the Finnish crew… and when Vesa points out that there’s a crossword on the back of the hot dog wrapper, Tomas and I feel the need to complete it… we fail miserably but it gives my Finnish friends plenty of opportunities to have a laugh at our expense so it’s all worthwhile…

I do a quick tour of the WPC and I’m impressed with how much extra work has been completed since my previous visit!

I find myself outside again in the park with Steve and Ali and we decide it’s time for an ice cream so we round up a bunch of folks who want a gelato… somehow we end up in  one of the bars on the piazza for an hour or two having a pretty amusing time – I blame Benny! – before we make it to the gelato joint (superb!) and then I head off back to the hotel with Doog and Laura – the trip home turns out to be quite memorable when a local tries to kill us on the road and then a big chunk of our route is given over to road works that google maps seems unable to route us around… Doog triumphs in spite of the adversity and gets us safely back to the hotel.

We round up a bunch for dinner and head into town in a large taxi and the Doog-mobile to grab some pizzas… which turn out to be both excellent and inexpensive at a place that Gill had found earlier in the day. We feast and chat and laugh and enjoy another good meal with friends… Doog and Laura fit into the group really well.

I end up crashing soon after getting back to the hotel knowing that I need to be sensible for an early morning meeting on Friday…

I am duly up at the proverbial crack of dawn and grab some breakfast with Scott before heading off to a meeting for an hour or two. There’s a bit of time between the meeting and the first workshop which is a talk by Oskar, George and Andreas. The opening ballet involved some moving music controlled by Nigel, with Oskar, Andreas and George floating their respective pieces of Oskar’s cubes into position for the assembly… it is hilarious.

Oskar takes the lead telling the story of Oskar’s Cubes over the years before Andreas talks us through the next generation of BurrTools and trying to get a room full of puzzlers walked through the radically new user interface – I haven’t taken a laptop so I’m able to concentrate on his demo and I learn a stack about it…. Chris and Dan just about manage to get through the demo… and then George talks about the manufacturing process and gives away another Bambu printer to great cheers.

We all get a copy of the puzzle to assemble (Thanks Dan!).

I have a bit of a wander and chat to all three monkeys, catch up with Doog and Tim and Rainer… I head up to the room for a sandwich because the hotel restaurant wasn’t going to be open, although it actually does seem to be open today after all – I must be confused. The sandwich is great!

After lunch I chew the fat with John a bit before we head down for Marc and Ryan’s talk about puzzle cataloguing – PUZZ.BUZZ seems to be the future and it all looks pretty handy – especially if you already have some sort of catalogue of your own – there’s an easy way to stitch yours into the motherlode!

Next up Vinco runs a fantastic workshop where we make our own copies of his OMPIC puzzle, although in fairness he’s done literally all of the hard work, so we’re literally just bevelling the pieces and then gluing them together as Vinco’s already made the boxes… everything goes together beautifully with the jigs that Vinco has given us… everything gets a coat of wax and then we’re able to play with our puzzles and pack them into their boxes. Vinco put a huge effort into teeing everything up perfectly – down to the funky behind-the-scenes videos he’s created to show us the work that went into prepping our goodie bags – it’s a great couple of hours spent with friends building a puzzle of our own. I end up spending more time than I’d care to admit finding the solution, having several spells of wondering if I’ve glued the pieces correctly when I can’t even find a cube assembly, let alone get them into the box.

We freshen up a wee bit before heading up to the Welcome Reception where there’s already quite a buzz with excited puzzlers milling around and enjoying the free wine, beer and water. There’s a charity auction table set up with a bunch of desirable puzzles laid out and there’s much excitement and speculation on the best strategy with various people trying to psych one another out. I know other’s pockets are WAY deeper than mine and I resolve to bid on a breeding pair of Standard Puzzle Hamsters, even if only to make sure that they raise a decent price… later it transpires I needn’t have worried as the bidding quickly goes way beyond what I was planning to bid anyway – it seems there are several generous people out there with a sense of humour and good knowledge of MPP meme-ology.  

 

I get to have a few chats with my mates in between the flag tossers and the marching bands and there’s a stonking great spread of dinner with plenty left over after everyone’s had their fill… I make use of the lesser-known buffet tables down in the garden rather than join the throng on the roof terrace – it feels like a good choice.

I migrate back upstairs for the auction ably handled by Kellian who seems to be introduced as Killian for some strange reason throughout the party. Anne supports her by parading the various lots around the room with someone shining a phone torch on them so that people can actually see them properly. Kellian does an excellent job of whipping up excitement and has the audience yelling out any stereotypical Italian words when they wanted to bid… so there was plenty of “Cappuccino” and “Tagliatelle” randomly being called out as money was being raised for a good cause… not sure what yet. Tom buys a little wooden chest that he’s not allowed to touch until after the end of the Party… we’re all intrigued.

The higher end puzzles become the subject of a silent auction that goes into the next day. I spend a while at the bar where I find I can get a soft drink, so a few us end up having a chat there while we hear the frantic yells of random Italian phrases still ringing out from the roof terrace. There’s a television showing the World Cup games and it’s being pretty much totally ignored…

I retire at a vaguely sensible hour, conscious that the party is going to continue for quite some time!

IPP43 - prima parte

We start our travels on Saturday afternoon heading down to London for pizzas with Chris and Ken at Social Dough before crashing at Chris’ place for the night. Next morning we head to the pod parking and we’re in the terminal in plenty of time to grab some breakfast at Nero before saying goodbye to our bags and heading into the duty-free paradise(!) that is terminal 5.

We stock up on M&Ms for the room and Longchamp bags for the carrying thereof…we mooch around for a while and head to the gate where there’s an absolute masterclass in not listening to the pleas not to gather at the entrance to the gate before your group number is called…we get on toward the end of boarding and there’s plenty space in the overheads so we relax for the short haul to Rome.

Rome is nice and warm (30C) and we get through immigration fairly quickly after expecting the worst with the new EU entry requirements – we found the shorter queue somehow… We get our bags and join the queue for the taxis after establishing that Nick and Anne are already well clear of the airport. Our bear of a cab driver drops us at our hotel and we’re welcomed to our room for the next few days…

We meet up with Nick and Anne a short while later and head out for a lemonade (with basil) and some pastries in lieu of lunch… then we head off into the underbelly of Rome managing to avoid most of the tourist spots until Nick navigates us to the Villa Borghese where they’re setting up for some sort of celebration for the local police chief, apparently… the grounds are massive and we spend ages wandering through them before heading down Via Veneto (I’ve heard of that one) which is fairly quiet as it’s a warm Sunday afternoon. We cut back and forwards toward our hotel and arrange to meet for a spot of dinner a little later…

Dinner is at a pizza joint that Chris has recommend (she also recommended the hotel and several other eateries around the hotel) and it’s brilliant! The pizzas are excellent and the waiter’s recommendation of lemon cake for dessert is really memorable! There’s a queue waiting for tables pretty much the entire time we’re there – clearly the locals like this place as well! We crash at a reasonable hour and get a brilliant night’s sleep.

We sleep in the next morning and Nick and Anne end up putting us to shame and heading out hours before us even though they’re the ones who should be jet-lagged. We end up back at the local coffee shop for a pain au chocolate and an espresso before meandering down toward Piazza Navona and a cold drink. Lunch consists of a massive plate of starters for me and a Caesar salad for Gill… we wander past the Trevi Fountain and I get a great pic of the assembled throng of tourists all clamouring for the perfect shot of the fountain…

The walk back to the hotel is largely uphill and as a result we take a pretty direct route before chilling for a few hours.

We meet up with Dave and Jan and Nick and Anne in the lobby and Dave wrangles us a cab down to Travestere where we have a secret food tour booked… we find Frank and Jo already in the first bar so we join them… it would be rude not to after all! After a short while our guide for the evening joins us and following the usual introductions and a long explanation of why we meet up once a year somewhere around the world – which for some reason includes an introductory lesson in mechanical puzzles.

Ludo then proceeds to introduce us to a bunch of local Roman dishes from a series of specialist establishments – deep-fried zucchini with anchovy and mozzarella at the second stop, proper Roman pasta at the fourth, Maritozzi was a revelation and the final round of gelato was superb…we’re all grateful to Jan for finding this one and for taking the initiative – it’s a brilliant evening for friends to reconnect and experience some of the local specialities.

Gill and I fade stupidly early – we don’t have the excuse of being jet-lagged so it must be an age thing!

 

Tuesday morning is another leisurely start with breakfast at our usual spot and then a trip to the local supermarket for some hotel snacks and breakfast the next day… then we grab a cab down to Piazza Navona for a little sight-seeing before our pasta and tiramisu-making class.

We meet up with the Potts and the Baxters and enjoy a welcome glass of prosecco before heading into the restaurant to start the process of making our pasta… literally from scratch – one egg and some flour and fair amount of gentle encouragement and we have a large sheet of pasta on our boards about an hour later… that duly gets chopped into strands and we choose our pasta sauces…

Next we’re onto the tiramisu and that’s even harder work as the real Italians don’t believe in using electric mixers! Once it’s fully beaten into submission we head out for a starter and some cold drinks in the warm piazza – those misting machines are superb! We end up having a wonderfully leisurely lunch made largely by our own fair hands and end up chatting there for an hour or two.

We’re feeling lazy and grab a cab back to the hotel where we end up chilling for the rest of the afternoon…

We meet the Rossettis and the Baxters for dinner at a local Taverna that Dave’s chosen with the help of Google and it’s superb! We literally feast on some simply superb dishes over several hours and have a brilliant evening before a gentle wander back to the hotel.

We end up getting all our packing sorted before crashing – we’ve set alarms for the morning but don’t end up needing them…simple breakfast in the hotel room and the final packing before meeting the gang downstairs and grabbing a taxi van to the train station… we manage to evade the alleged plague of pickpockets, grab another coffee and pastry before heading off to the platform, which it turns out is a long hike across the other side of the station… we make it with about 10 minutes to spare but the Potts don’t…

They end up grabbing a cab to another Rome station and getting a later train from there to try and catch up with us at our change-over where we should have just over an hour between trains… we watch their progress over the next couple of hours with their window of opportunity getting progressively smaller and smaller but they manage it with a couple of minutes to spare in the end…

We get onboard and find Duncan and his wife in the same carriage, only I insist on calling him Donald for some reason… in Assisi, Jan is off the train in a flash and wrangles us the only taxi on the rank and all 8 of us pile into it and head up the hill to our hotels.

We check in and unpack and then start running into all of our friends in the lobby and at registration – it’s good to be among my tribe again, especially now that there’s a growing number of MPP-ers among them!

 

MPP XXXXCIIIV

[Apologies for the tumbleweed – some of my puzzling/blogging time is being taken up by other aspects of the hobby – it’s a good thing, it just means that I need to be a bit more selective about my blogging so there’ll probably be a bit less of it going forward.] 

No puzzlers staying over means another more relaxed start to MPP. Rather unusually I’m the first to arrive at the hall and start getting everything laid out for the day’s festivities: the fridge is packed with pop and the cakes and biscuits are spread out invitingly. I start on lugging the tables and chairs out when I’m joined by Chris and Chloe, and Robin manages to time his entrance with the completion of all the heavy lifting.

The puzzles come out and the gang starts drifting in (in the gentle arrival sense, not the rubber burning sense – the car park isn’t that large after all). I’ve taken along my most recent Karakuri boxes from this year’s Idea Contest for folks to fiddle with… and several do – they’re enjoyed, but this year’s crop (at least the ones that I’ve secured) aren’t massively challenging.

Kevin arrives with a large jigsaw puzzle for Steve – he’d won an auction for one of the Hayducks’ lovely creations that was fairly local to Kevin so he’d muled for Steve.

It was great to meet Carlos, dipping his toes into the proverbial MPP swamp for the first time. He’d brought along a few of his own designs for folks to play on and then gifted me a copy of Pyramidst at the end of the day as a thank you – thank YOU, sir! Although having had a bit of a play with it, I suspect it’s going to be beyond my solving abilities – there are a lot of complex shapes to pack into that neat little box!

Toby bounded into his maiden MPP and fitted straight in, dispensing “helpful” banter like he’d been there since the start… he’ll probably fit in. There was plenty of discussion about the Games Expo down the road and which puzzles were worth picking up and where the puzzle stands were as some folks had already been and others were planning to head there on the Sunday.

After our success with Derek’s big ball at King’s Day, he’s sent me a copy of the STLs for his 480-piece Icosahedron Frequency 4 – it kept the printer humming away for a few days and I have the bits all neatly package up to challenge the assembling puzzlers… who don’t disappoint. Chris and Chloe put in the main shift, importantly noticing that the colour-coding that I’ve given them isn’t quite right and the lovely large picture that Derek’s supplied has every joint inverted. Once they get past the initial hurdles the jolly big ball goes together steadily over the course of a few hours and there’s some celebration when the final piece is locked into place, completing what turns out to be a remarkably stable structure – Thanks Derek! [Now I just need to find somewhere to put it…]

Several folks have a go on the Tartarus Stickman Safe – making a reasonable amount of progress before retreating and resetting it for the next puzzler.

Kyle ends up spending a fair amount of time getting about three-quarters of the way through Benno’s Red Treasure with a little encouragement from Carlos – they ask me for some advice at one point and it rapidly becomes clear that I’ve already forgotten most of the solve… that seems to be happening more quickly these days!

Several folks enjoy fiddling with Robin's copy of Henry Segerman’s transforming cube-cuboctohedron – it’s a fun object to fiddle with as the sides change length between states… very clever stuff.

The Monkeys have brought along several copies of their latest project: a run of Gary Foshee’s Transparent Locks – definitely one of my favourite Foshee designs: it all looks so totally open and honest when you start, yet there’s some delicious puzzling to be had. The guys had done an incredible job on bringing this one back to the market – it’s a faithful replica of Gary’s original (with his family’s blessing of course!) with the one small touch of brass, well, there had to be, didn’t there? Awesome job fellas!

Frank arrives around the middle of the afternoon after I’ve nipped home to check on the hounds – apparently the traffic on the motorway down was so bad he nearly had to stop for a nap. (#iykyk) He’s brought along a couple of copies of a new design he’s toying with – two (burry) rods in a box that need to be removed… which it turns out is a bit trickier than you might imagine. Of course there are all sorts of knobbly bits inside the box stopping you from doing what you want to do and in the end you’ll need a fairly decent dance between the pieces and box to find a way out… shows promise! ;-)

I’d printed off a fistful of George’s new four-piece dodecahedrons and we managed to make sure that in the end everyone got a set that would actually assemble – some folks are incapable of following simple instructions like take two “a” pieces and two “m” pieces… that one’s definitely worth a play because there are two very distinct assemblies.

Somewhere around 5pm we headed back up to Puzzling Times HQ for pizzas and more puzzling… Carlos and Toby managed to stay for a little – hopefully they’ll be back and be able to spend a bit longer next time.  

There were a few distinct cohorts developing – the serious puzzlers hunkered around the dining room table ploughing through a series of puzzles collected from the puzzle cave… some gentle puzzling and chatter in the lounge and then a bunch of us in the kitchen just chatting without even the pretence of puzzling… everyone seems to find their niche and all seemed to have a good time – so I’m calling this another successful MPP – our 62^nd!